Exogorth Squadron
by Tathrin
Summary: So named because the giant space slugs are usually dismissed as tall tales. This squadron is not one for big, flashy, public victories; it strikes from the shadows and vanishes, leaving nothing but rumors and death behind. These are pilots who get their hands dirty. Rebellions may be built on hope but they are rarely won with honor. (7ABY)
1. Chapter 1

**EXOGORTH SQUADRON: CHAPTER ONE**

Areha Duranna had learned to expect the sudden hushes, the looks of pity and sadness, whenever she met new people. She had not learned how to take it in stride. It had been seven years since her planet had been destroyed and in that time an Empire had fallen and a New Republic had risen from the ashes of the old. But people still fell silent, uncomfortable in the shadow of her shattered world. People still didn't know how to react to Alderaanians.

Part of that was doubtless because of the fact that there were so _few_ of them now. Even those who traveled the galaxy's farthest lengths might reasonably go their whole lives without ever encountering one of the survivors of that disaster. Areha did not have any solid numbers on how many ex-pats and tourists had been off-world at the time her planet was targeted for destruction; she didn't think anyone knew, since the best source for records that would have let one calculate such numbers had been Alderaan itself and their central computer storage had been vaporized along with everything else. But everyone knew that there were not many Alderaanians left in the galaxy; knew that the number would only ever get smaller. There would still be people who could claim to be _descended_ from Alderaan in the future, of course—but they would be the children of ghosts, of memories. Alderaan was gone.

And she was complicit in the destruction of its memory. Rather than honoring her planet and her past by dedicating her life to living the Alderaanian ideal as an example to the galaxy, Areha had chosen to turn her back on her people's culture and heritage and take up arms against a cruel and violent universe.

Sometimes she felt guilty about that.

Right here, standing in the middle of the sparse briefing room while her new squadronmates tried to stare at her without meeting her eyes, was not one of those times. _That's right_ , Areha thought fiercely, _take a good long look. This is what the Empire does to people. This is what we're fighting to prevent. How does that make you feel?_

She glared out at all of them, her brown face pale and drawn, her sharp eyebrows knit together in a fierce glare. A few dared to meet her glittering green eyes for a moment but they flinched away anxiously when she returned their gaze. Most of them didn't even try. Areha raked her gaze across the half-filled chairs and almost jerked with surprise when one of the other pilots _did_ meet her eyes. He was a young Rutian Twi'lek, his blue skin gleaming under the sickly artificial lights, his eyes steady. The tip of one headtail twitched. Areha knew that Twi'leks could communicate elaborate, specific ideas with the movements of their lekku but it was a language she had never studied. She wasn't sure what he was trying to say to her so she kept her face blank. She did jerk her chin slightly in what was almost a nod, not wanting to seem unsociable—at least not to someone who was bold enough to look at an Alderaanian without flinching. His lips curled in a thin, sharp-toothed smile and this time it was Areha who looked away first.

At a nod from the executive officer she took her seat, only becoming aware that her legs were shaking after the fact. She was glad to let the next pilot stand and face the scrutiny of their fellows now.

He was a human, like her, and like her he was a little shorter than galactic average; pilots tended to be small, at least the good ones, because a snubfighter's cockpit was cramped and smaller bodies made for more room in those tight confines. Unlike her he met the room with a smile, his bright teeth flashing like he was some kind of holodrama star. A scar that had to have come from a crease of blasterfire cut an angled line across one brow and disappeared into his hairline. The position that Areha was sitting at made it hard to tell whether the scar affected the growth of his hair; his skin was nearly as black as the small, neat braids that brushed the collar of his orange flightsuit and the harsh lighting of the briefing room hit his forehead like a planetary nimbus, obscuring the fine details of the old injury.

"Tanett Shenk," the X-O announced to the room, "Corellia. Communications Officer." Tannett gave his audience a sweeping bow. A few people laughed and the nervous tension that had gripped the room since Areha's introduction broke. She was surprised to hear he was going to be in charge of squadron communications; with his looks and swagger she had expected him to be a regular hotshot flyboy or at the least a sharpshooter, not a comm-tech.

Tanett returned to his seat with a languid, casual slouch. _Oh, he's definitely a Corellian_ , Areha thought, rolling her eyes.

She turned with the rest of the room to look at the next pilot introduced: a pretty Zabrak woman with delicate purple-brown tattoos stenciled across her light yellow-brown skin. She had no eyebrows although she was one of the sub-species of Zabrak that did grow hair on their heads. Hers started halfway back on her head, past her short horns, and curled in a feathery pouf that ended at the base of her skull. She was small even for a pilot and her delicate, fine-boned features carried an air of fragility like fine ceramics, but when she moved to clasp her hands behind her back and give the room a stiff bow, Areha saw hard muscle shift beneath her flightsuit. The Zabrak's narrow golden eyes studied the room with the intensity of a born predator and Areha revised her opinion of the other woman's apparent delicacy.

"Kaden Lothar," the XO announced, "Iridonia. It's not an official role, but Lothar has volunteered to help with hand-to-hand training for those of you who want a few pointers. I've made her promise not to break any of you right before a mission. Other times, you're on your own." Areha glanced at the executive officer and was surprised to see that the woman was grinning. She hadn't realized that their XO _had_ a sense of humor. A grim-faced, middle aged native of Coruscant, Captain Shenay Ortellan had according to base-rumor not set foot on her homeworld since joining the Rebellion fifteen years ago. Rumor also said that the reason she was only a captain, despite over a decade of service to the cause, was because she'd spent most of those fifteen years quietly feuding with first Davits Draven and later Airen Cracken himself. Areha wasn't sure how much credence to put on those rumors; she had met Cracken briefly and the man had not struck her as someone who allowed personal feelings to influence…well, _anything._ But she couldn't think of another reason why a woman with Ortellan's service record would be a mere captain, even if she _had_ lost both of her hands while EVA during the Battle of Endor. According to more believable rumor, she had not demonstrated a high enough level of prosthetic cohesion to be rated as snubfighter-capable afterward, and that was why she now served Starfleet Command as an executive officer to fighter squadrons rather than flying in them herself.

Areha had no time to ponder Ortellan's history now though, because the XO was already calling the name of the next pilot as he stood: "Jaen Vao, Nar Shaddaa. Squad medic." It was the blue Twi'lek who had smiled at her. He stood, turned so he could face most of the room, folded his long fingers together gracefully, and gave them all a little bow—much smoother and more languid that the perfunctory gesture that Kaden had made. He was still smiling that thin little smile and didn't seem to hear the whispers that followed the announcement of his homeworld. Nar Shaddaa was known for a lot of things but a bastion of cutting-edge medical science it was not. Still, he could have trained anywhere; a person's homeworld did not always dictate their upbringing and Areha thought that he looked far too pleasant to be a hardened criminal. He looked a little too pleasant to be a field medic, too, but he probably hadn't started out patching-up soldiers on battlefields. Most of the New Republic's medical personnel had not trained as combat medics.

The next pilot called was another human, a female like Areha although they had little in common by appearance. This woman was tall for a pilot with thick, solid muscles and broad shoulders. Her sleeves were rolled up, displaying forearms that looked like they had been forged from durasteel cables. Areha could not help but gape, impressed and a little envious. While this woman doubtless found the confines of a snubfighter cockpit cramped she didn't look like there was much else in the galaxy that dared get in her way. Her ash-blonde hair was cropped close in a military buzz-cut and her tan skin sported a number of small white scars as though she had walked through a hail of shrapnel at some point in the past. Her cold blue eyes scanned the room as dispassionately as a droid's sensors and when she cracked a smile it looked like someone mimicking an expression they had seen on other people's faces without properly understanding. Areha felt a little flutter in her guts; she desperately wanted to impress this woman, or maybe even to _be_ her someday. With her slight build more suited to an acrobat than a brawler she knew that wasn't a possibility, but her awareness of the reality of the situation did nothing to quench her sense of awe as she drank-in the sight of her burly new squadronmate.

"Treen," said Ortellan. "Agamar. Combat expert." There was something strange in her tone and Areha wrenched her eyes away from Treen's glorious physique to study the XO. Ortellan's eyes were bent over her datapad, although she had not had to refer to it for any of the other names she had called, and her expression was unfathomable.

Areha had no more time to fathom it; Treen gave a single curt nod and sat back down, her posture ramrod straight and her eyes fixed straight ahead, and then Ortellan was calling the next pilot to stand:

This was another Twi'lek, a female of a delicate purple hue. Areha wasn't sure what the term was for purple Twi'leks; she had never met one before. This woman was tall and athletic-looking even in her loose, rumpled orange flightsuit. She stood with her chin raised defiantly, her eyes glittering, and the smile on her face looked strained. Her lekku had been tattooed in brown ink with intricate, looping twists and spirals that sprouted delicate flowers at the intersections. More delicate twists and buds framed her eyes, curving across her high cheekbones. The tattoos on her right lekku were marred by an ugly, splotchy scar and Areha, who knew that lekku were extremely sensitive organs, winced at the sight.

"Sienn Saresh, Ryloth," Ortellan announced. "Sharpshooter." Areha turned back to stare at the Twi'lek; from the murmur of surprise that ran around the room, she wasn't the only one to be startled. While Areha knew that a person's skills could not be measured based on their birth or species, she also knew that the reality of the galaxy meant that many people found it hard to break from the traditions—or constrictions—of their roots, especially non-humans who suffered more at the hands of bigoted Imperials and oppressive Imperials laws. For a young Twi'lek female, especially one from Ryloth, to have acquired the skills necessary to be a fighter squadron's resident sharpshooter was rare indeed.

Sienn, doubtless hearing the whispers, raised her chin a little higher. Her brown eyes blazed defiance.

Areha decided she liked the Twi'lek girl.

The next to stand was a Rodian man. He was a little taller than Areha but he hunched his shoulders as if he wished he could take up less space than he did. He was a pudgy, green-skinned man with few of the bristly skull-ridge spines traditional to his species. His ears were wide and flared out on the sides of his head and his snout twitched nervously as he glanced around the room. His eyes were a light, watery blue, very large, and the scaling that ringed them was tinted almost yellow. His pebbly green skin looked more pallid than that of most Rodians that Areha had met. When the XO announced his homeworld, she understood why: "Gez of Clan Tanwa, Coruscant. Demolitions." Anyone who lived in the lower levels of Coruscant lived a life without natural sunlight. Since Coruscant had been under Imperial Control until recently, the likelihood of any nonhuman being wealthy and influential enough to afford to live on the upper levels—and furthermore to be tolerated there by their bigoted neighbors—was low. If Gez had spent his whole life on Coruscant, he could probably count on one sucker-fingered hand the number of times he'd actually seen the sun before traveling off-world.

The Rodian sat down, looking relieved, and a Cathar stood next. He had tawny, striped fur and a golden-brown mane that had been tied back in thick braids that reached nearly to his waist. Areha had never met one of the cat-people but she recognized him from the descriptions she had read. It was rare to see a Cathar outside their homeworld these days—at least, one who wasn't a slave. From the way the thickly-furred man's broad shoulders went back and his chin went up, the very picture of feline pride, Areha had a feeling that if anyone had tried to make this Cathar a slave, they had regretted it quickly. He had the sleeves of his flightsuit rolled up above his elbows and the zipper in the front open nearly to his naval, exposing a large swatch of off-white fur centered across his chest. Even beneath the thick fur it was obvious that he was muscular, although his build was more that of a lithe acrobat than the stout, solid bulk of Treen. There were more patches of that off-white fur at his ears and cheeks and his nose was a deep, reddish-brown. His teeth were bright white and very sharp. He spread his lips in a smile that was more teeth than anything else, although that might have simply been a trick of biology; when one evolved as an apex predator, it had to be difficult to grin in any fashion that _wasn't_ predatory.

"Redun Hadar, Cathar," the XO said. Redun tossed his head and his braids rippled. "Flight Officer Hadar will be in charge of organizing most missions that require infiltration or exfiltration in natural, overgrown environments. If you're clumsy I suggest you find a way to butter him up for some private lessons." Redun chuckled as he sat down. Kaden flashed the Cathar man a thin smile but Gez looked nervous.

The next pilot to rise made everyone flinch. He was a short, stout human man with rough, ruddy skin and auburn hair that was going gray in streaks. It was the metallic mask that covered most of his face that made everyone's breath catch in their throats. He still had his natural eyes—a light, gold-flecked hazel—but from his cheekbones down his whole face, right down to the underside of his chin, had been replaced by a harsh metal prosthetic. It looked more like an exhaust grill than a mouth and reminded Areha a little of the foreboding facemask that the late Darth Vader had worn beneath his black helmet—not that she had ever met the Dark Lord of the Sith, but everyone knew what Vader had looked like. This man did not inspire the terror that Vader had, but rather horrified pity. When Areha could finally tear her eyes away from his ravaged face she saw that one of his hands had also been replaced with a blocky, dark gray prosthetic. With the baggy flightsuit he wore she couldn't tell if he had any other mechanical parts but she hoped not; a face and a hand were more than enough pieces for anyone to lose, she thought.

He raised his prosthetic hand in a jaunty, casual salute and Areha noticed his eyes were twinkling. While there was no expression to read on his mechanical face, she thought the wrinkles around the corners of his eyes looked more like laugh lines than anything else, and relaxed a little. She even managed a small smile for him when he glanced her way and she was rewarded by a flicker of one eye that she was _almost_ sure had been a wink.

"Berjeleth Afneen," the XO said, her voice quite normal. "Harrin. Mechanic." While the sleek metal prosthetics that had replaced her arms were much less jarring to the eye than the blocky, disquieting ones that Berjeleth sported, Areha supposed that Ortellan must nonetheless be used to the idea—and sight—of mechanical limbs, regardless of what style they came in. She resolved not to let herself stare at Berjeleth anymore. She knew what it was like to be looked at with pity, and she didn't like it either.

Ortellan gave the room a moment to settle before she called the next name: "Leeso Voond, Duro. Sniper—if we need one." From the XO's thin smile she thought it a distinct possibility. "Lieutenant Voond also has the highest number of confirmed snubfighter kills in the unit, so if she offers you piloting advice I suggest taking it." The thin, dour-looked Duro woman did not swell with pride the way most pilots would over being so singled-out among their fellows. She stood with her hands clasped loosely in front of her, her posture relaxed, her face impassive. Areha had never thought Duros to have particularly expressive features but even in comparison with the rest of her species, Leeso seemed reserved. Her wrinkled, grayish-green skin looked blue wherever it fell in shadow and her bulbous red eyes were uncharacteristically narrow. Rather than looking around at her fellow pilots she stared straight ahead, unmoving until Ortellan indicated that she could sit down again. Leeso folded her long limbs up easily. She was the tallest of the squadron but something about her jerky, accordion-like motions told Areha that if the Duro found the confines of a snubfighter cockpit cramped, she would never admit that it caused her any difficulties.

The next to be called was also tall for a pilot, although considerably shorter than Leeso. He was a Mirialan man, his origins unmistakable even before Ortellan announced his homeworld: his yellow-tinted green skin could have belonged to any number of species, but his cheeks and chin were marked by the stark, geometric tattoos that characterized Mirial natives. The markings had some elaborate, important meaning in his people's culture but Areha had never studied the symbology; the number of Mirialans at large in the galaxy was not high, and from everything she had heard they did not expect outlanders to know their markings anyway. "Mondalnan Ulnee," the executive office announced and the man inclined his head in a polite nod to the room. "Mirial. Another combat specialist and," she grimaced, "not someone I advise playing Sabaac with." Everyone chuckled and Mondalnan's wide blue lips parted in a smile. His eyes were narrow, a strong molten orange color, and between those, his close-cropped black hair, and the tattoos, he had looked foreboding until he smiled; now his eyes crinkled up into deep folds and his stoic expression gave way to an infectious cheer.

Areha found herself smiling back at the Mirialan man until the next pilot rose and her smile was dashed off her face by the sight of his gruesome injury. It was obviously an old one, from the way the scorched flesh at the edges had faded to white, but it was a horrifying sight nonetheless. He was a Quarren and both of the tentacles on the left side of his triangle-shaped face had been burnt clean off. The short stubs twitched in what seemed to be an autonomous movement as his icy blue eyes traveled slowly between the staring pilots. Areha's stomach did flip-flops and she forced herself to meet his gaze rather than gape at the missing tentacles. She didn't know why he hadn't opted for prosthetic replacements; perhaps it was a cultural issue, or perhaps medical technology couldn't provide a suitable replacement for such delicate digits. Areha had met a few Quarren before but only in passing and she knew little of their social mores. Perhaps they eschewed prosthetics—or perhaps this man simply preferred not to hide what his fight had cost him.

"Lieutenant Lssk Drenko, Dac," the XO said. "Slicer and strategist."

"I look forward to flying with you all," he said, his voice gravelly. His eyes flicked toward the door and his beak twitched in an expression that Areha could not read, but whatever else he might have been planning to say he thought better of it and returned to his seat with a polite nod to Ortellan.

The commander of their new squadron walked in then. Areha sat straighter, her spine going rigid in automatic response to his presence; from the rustling of cloth she could hear around her, she wasn't the only one adjusting her posture. Two rows up, Tanett pulled in his languidly draped limbs and swung upright in his seat. Of the pilots she could see the only one who didn't move was Treen; the muscular woman was already sitting as rigidly as the human body could affix itself.

Areha studied their leader. He was a Mon Calamari of slightly less than average height for his species although the way he hunched his shoulders and lowered his tall head like a battering ram made him look shorter. His skin was a mottled grayish-blue with brown speckles. The bulbous eye on the left side of his face swiveled to let him look around the room without having to turn his head as much as a human would have; where his other eye should have been a deep divot had been carved out of his flesh leaving a jagged mass of pink scar tissue. A gleam of shiny black plasteel caught the light as he turned, evidence of some kind of ocular implant. Areha guessed that there had been too much damage to the nerves or even just too much muscle tissue missing to allow for a true, independently-swiveling prosthetic replacement to match his other eye.

If General Kiel Macklen found his disfiguring injury a handicap it didn't show in the grim, one-eyed stare that he raked across his new pilots. Areha couldn't help glancing sideways toward Lssk. She knew that Quarrens and Mon Calamari did not always get along, but Macklen must have been involved in approving all of his pilots if not outright in charge of their selection; surely he would not have chosen Lssk if he did not think he would be able to fly alongside the other man. The real question thus was how Lssk would react to having a Mon Cal for a commanding officer. While Areha was not an expert in the cultural clashes between the sentients of Dac, she knew enough to understand that the Quarren harbored a great deal of resentment toward the Mon Calimari. She couldn't imagine that taking the orders of one would be easy for Lssk if he shared his people's resentments but whatever he felt at the prospect, his beaked face was inscrutable to her eyes.

"Well," Macklen said at last, the barbells at his throat quivering, "you all know what we're here for. The Empire may be crippled but it isn't dead, and an ebbing tide hides treacherous currents. Worse, there are those who do not know how to read those currents who will try to convince you that the sea is calm. We know better than that." He slapped one broad hand against the other with a damp clap. "All of you, you were chosen for this squadron because of your skills, yes—but you were also chosen because you understand what is at stake. You understand the _enemy_. You have suffered at their hands. You will not let some barnacle-chewing peace-maker blunt your teeth and dull your claws. You are here because you will _not stop fighting_."

He paused, letting the ripples of his words fill the still pond of the listening pilots. Areha felt her heart thudding in her throat, her fingers trembling with the urge to press against the control stick of her snubfighter or the trigger of her blaster. Around her she could feel that same eager hunger rising from her new squadronmates. A distant part of her mind wondered idly what brutal lessons the others had learned; she of course was Alderaanian, and no one knew the pain the Empire caused better than the survivors of Alderaan. But from Macklen's words she was not the only one who had been dragged through hells by the Empire's black deeds; from the sound of things, everyone in this room carried some version of her pain. It would be interesting to know those stories; to know that for once she was not, entirely, alone in the ache of her loss.

Mostly though, she was dangling with anticipation over what would be his _next_ words.

"That is what we need, what the galaxy needs. The New Republic is forging a bright, shiny new Senate out of the tangled seaweed of Coruscant—and that is good, the galaxy will need that. But I think they are acting prematurely. I think they are too ready to call the fight _won_ when it is not _over_." He grumbled low in his throat and said, "Do you know, there are some on the Provisional Council who want to talk _treaties_ with _Imperial officers?_ "

A low growl met Macklen's incredulous words. Areha turned to see the Cathar's teeth bared. She smiled thinly. She lacked the voicebox necessary for growling, but Redun had expressed her sentiments perfectly—hers and, she suspected, those of most of the other pilots sitting in this room.

Macklen's lips parted in an approximation of a human-type smile. It was not, Areha had learned, a natural gesture of Mon Calamari faces, but most of the Mon Cals who had served with the New Republic—and before that, the Rebel Alliance—for any length of time had developed the habit. She wasn't sure if Macklen's smile was natural or deliberate; she was sure that either way it didn't matter. "Exactly my thoughts, Flight Officer Hadar," he said, chortling. "Exactly.

"So!" Macklen clapped his hands together again and started pacing back and forth across the front of the briefing room. Every eye was fixed to him with laser-sight intensity, even Captain Ortellan's. "What are we to do about this? I think the only thing to do is to take the fight to the enemy. To _continue_ to take the fight to the enemy, as the enemy they are. This is _war_. Why dress it up in pretty speeches and shake hands with the people we ought to be shooting at? Whatever we call ourselves now, whatever trappings of legitimacy and political fripperies we dress it up in, _we are a rebellion_. So let's rebel."

Gez was the first to let out a whoop; he was not the last.

General Macklen indulged their high spirits for a moment, then waved the noise away. The pilots fell silent immediately, all of them tense and eager. Areha found herself sitting on the very edge of her chair, hands curled into fists on her knees. She felt like a manka cat ready to pounce.

"So," Macklen said again, quieter this time. Areha leaned forward as though it would help her hear his low, gravely voice. There was no other sound in the room as the grizzled Mon Cal general spoke. "We have seen that even the politicking, war-weary peace-makers of the Provisional Council have enough sense to recognize the merits of victory, even if they have lost the fire that once made them dare to order such battles themselves." He was speaking of the recent actions of Rogue Squadron in taking Thyferra, Areha knew; while the official story was that the mission had been sanctioned in secret, rumors that had filtered through the pilots' community said something very different. Areha was inclined to trust the rumors—and she was sure she wasn't the only one in the room who thought that way.

Macklen was still talking. "From that, we can draw only one conclusion: if we want victories, if we want to face the enemy, we must make these battles ourselves and let our erstwhile 'leaders' come in cheering for us afterward." He shook his head and his voice dropped still lower. "It will not be easy. It will certainly not be a path littered with promotions and parades. We will make enemies within our own ranks: those who do not like that we have slipped the leash, who do not like that we choose our own current. So be it! Are you pilots because you want promotions, or because you want _blood?_ "

This time there were no cheers. There was silence, save for the creaks and shuffles of tense and eager bodies shifting on hard chairs, straining against the urge to fight and fly. Areha's teeth were bared in a predatory smile that mimicked the one Redun had given earlier. She didn't have to look at the pilots sitting on either side of her to know that in whatever way was appropriate to their species, they were all mirroring her expression. She was not, had never been, a fighter pilot for the sake of rank and recompense. She was here for Alderaan.

And whatever dark, ugly, burning pits of pain and loss motivated her fellow pilots, they were here for those and not for petty ambition.

A thin hand raised. "Question, sir?" asked Leeso. Macklen turned and nodded for the Duros woman to speak. "Are you proposing unsanctioned missions under the nose of the New Republic, or are you talking about going—well— _rogue_ , if you will? Not that I have an objection to the latter, if that's what needs to be done," Leeso hurried to add, her voice as impassive as her face. "I just want to make sure that things are understood properly."

Macklen curled his lips in another artificial smile. "I see no call to abandon the Republic," he said. "They have not turned into the enemy; they have merely grown weak and tired of fighting." He lifted his shoulders in a shrug; another gesture copied from human discourse, impossible to tell if it had become so ingrained that it was a natural response or if he did it consciously to create a certain impression in the minds of his listeners. "I cannot blame them; it has been a long war," he said gently. Then his remaining eye narrowed and his voice tightened. "But that is exactly why we cannot roll over and let the undertow pull us into the deeps," he rumbled. "That is exactly why we must keep fighting, even if they do not want to; even if they do not want _us_ to.

"The Empire cannot be allowed to retreat and lick its wounds; cannot be allowed to skulk off into the corners of the galaxy and extend to us the branch of _diplomatic relations_." He practically spat the words. "We cannot allow for their intolerable bigotry and terror to become _normalized_. Do you want to wait for the day when the Empire has a Senator of its own back on Coruscant, has a voice in our New Republic like they represent a legitimate government?" There were shouts of agreement and outrage but Macklen neither silenced them nor waited for them to finish, instead raising his voice so he could shout over them: "How many worlds left in the Empire's cruel fist of bondage is too many? Two hundred? Twenty? I say, even one world is too many! We will not, cannot, have peace with the Empire! I will not rest until they are destroyed down to the last white-shelled trooper and wedge-shaped starship. And you will not rest either! That is what you are here for, pilots! That is what I have formed this squadron for! To fight until the last foul trace of the Empire has been purged and the waters of peace can at last run clear and clean. Are you with me?"

Areha didn't remember rising to her feet, but she was standing suddenly; standing and cheering. The others were on their feet too, most of them: Berjeleth had not stood but he had his arms raised over his head and he was clapping enthusiastically. Kaden was hunched in on herself in a tight little ball, rocking back and forth in her seat, arms wrapped around her shoulders as though to hold herself together—or stop herself from going for a weapon. Her face was shining. Lssk was sitting back in his chair, nodding contentedly, as though he had been in on this little speech from the beginning and was enjoying the pay-off. Slowly the others sat down again, some of them looking embarrassed at their lack of decorum and others just looking happy, eager, ready to fight. Areha felt heat in her cheeks and knew she was blushing.

Macklen let the silence sit for a moment. Then he said, "Very well. Then I dub this Exogorth Squadron. Like the great space slugs of legend there will be many stories about our exploits, but none will know the truth. We will strike from the deeps and fade back into the darkness, leaving only blood and fire in our wake. We will be what the Empire wakes, shaking with fear over, in their secret dreams. We will be those who—to borrow a Corellian phrase—get our hands dirty with the jobs no one else dares to do." This time Areha knew that his smile came from his heart, not his head. "We will be the rogue wave that looms suddenly from the placid ocean and visits death upon those who deserve it."

A long pause followed his words and then Captain Ortellan stepped forward, pulling a datapad from her pocket. "I have everyone's wingmate assignments here," she said, her calm voice jarringly mild after Macklen's thunderous speech, "as well as your initial order packets. There's no sense in reassigning quarters now since we'll be departing at 0400 tomorrow morning. Take tonight to pack and meet again in Hanger Cresh Twenty-Seven with everything you don't want left behind and disposed of. Now, first pair: Voond and Treen…"

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 _NOTE ONE: This story takes place within the Star Wars Legends continuity because that a) is the canon with which I am most familiar and b) is currently the canon that has the most details defined for this time period. I will attempt to make it accessible to both readers who are familiar with the Legends continuity and those who only know the New Canon, and will do my best to work in elements and cameos from both versions of the Star Wars galaxy to make everyone feel at home - but where details conflict I will defer to Legends continuity, in part because the New Canon simply does not yet have enough concrete details to build off of. If you are confused about any details or conflicts of canon please do not hesitate to ask (although please remember to sign-in first so that I can actually respond to your review with an answer!) and if you notice something that seems to be an error please point it out! It might be something that I altered on purpose or something that is caused by conflicting canon information...or it might just be a mistake, and if it's the latter I will be grateful to have a chance to fix it! Advice, suggestions, and criticism are all welcome.  
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 _NOTE TWO: This story will contain violence, both in snubfighters and on the ground. There will also be diverse interpersonal relationships although the focus of the story will be more on fighting than on romance. If you are familiar with the_ Rogue Squadron _and_ Wraith Squadron _books by Aaron Allston and Michael Stackpole think along those lines_ — _although with characters who are a little bit more ruthless, a little bit nastier. These characters are the successors to Cassian Andor's harsh acts of necessity, not Luke Skywalker's bright and shiny heroism. Trigger warning: eventual character deaths._


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

None of the friends that Areha had made in the initial assessment period had been chosen for the final roster. There had been a few dozen prospective pilots here trying out for General Macklen's new squadron; she wasn't sure what would become of the others, if they would be sent back to their former units or if the general had other plans for some of them. For all she knew, he was right now giving the very same speech to another eager group of pilots, planning to keep the two—or more—squadrons in the dark about their mutual purposes…but she doubted it. General Macklen did not seem the type to engage in that kind of maneuvering. It would be a refreshing change after the charged political atmosphere of her last assignment; being part of General Rieeken's fleet had been exhilarating but too many of her fellow pilots had been more interested in seizing a chance to impress the legendary general than in simply doing their duty.

That was all she was interested in—not so much for duty's sake as that of revenge, of purging the galaxy from the threat of the Empire so that no other star systems would ever suffer the fate of Alderaan. But in the years since her world had died Areha had learned that closing her heart did not offer protection but simply locked the pain inside with nothing to blunt the jagged edges; she had learned that human beings, or at least that Alderaanians, _needed_ other people in their lives.

So while she was excited for the idea of this new squadron, she was leery to be setting off on this journey surrounded by strangers—especially after she had gone to such efforts to befriend her training partners, expecting at least one or two of them to make the final cut with her.

 _You'll just have to start over from the beginning_ , Areha told herself briskly. Given the way Starfighter Command shuffled its assets around it was something she had had a lot of experience at over the years. Sometimes it seemed like a squadron had no sooner figured out how to mesh all its pilots together than half of them were dead and the survivors being scattered to other units to replace their combat losses—although the brutal rate of snubfighter attrition was nowhere near what it had been during the days of the Rebel Alliance. Flying a snubfighter then had been akin to jumping out an airlock into hard vacuum and hoping you could hold your breath. Areha was frankly amazed that she had survived it this long—and at times she had been disappointed by her survival as well, although she had largely cast aside those bleak thoughts these days.

"Woolgather on the transport, not in front of it."

The voice startled her from her thoughts and Areha spun around to see dour Leeso glaring at her from across the concourse. She had a single plump duffle bag over one shoulder and walked with sharp, wide-legged strides that covered the distance between them quickly.

"S-sorry," Areha said, but the Duros woman was already moving past her. Her bootheels rang crisply on the shuttle's metal ramp as she ascended. Areha could feel her face go hot and she adjusted the straps of her own baggage as an excuse to duck her head and take a deep breath, trying to banish the traitorous blush.

"Don't worry about her." This voice belonged to Tanett, the man with the braids and the scar and the bright smile. He was dressed in a plain gray jumpsuit today, half-opened to show a green shirt underneath. His hair was in the same neat, delicate braids he had sported yesterday. "I've been her roommate through this whole lovely selection ordeal and as near as I can determine, she's always like that. To everybody."

"Thanks," Areha said.

"Don't mention it." He grinned. "I'm just happy that wingmate assignments usually translate into roommate assignments so that means when we get our new bunks, I'll be out of her hair."

Since all Duros were bald, Leeso included, this was obviously a joke. Areha smiled dutifully and followed Tanett onto the shuttle.

Lssk was directing everyone where to stow their bags. Areha saluted the Quarren lieutenant and tried to keep her eyes away from his mutilated tentacles. He waved her and Tanett onboard without looking at them and pointed vaguely in the direction of an open supply locker; he was in the middle of what sounded like a very technical argument with Gez. The chubby Rodian had hunched in on himself so tightly that it looked like his neck had vanished, but he was gesticulating furiously between the stacked luggage and the bags in his arms, refusing to back down.

"What's going on?" Tanett whispered as he slid into a seat next to Sienn. Areha hurried to stow her own bags with his and took the empty seat on the other side of the purple Twi'lek. She was dressed in comfortable-looking civilian trousers and boots with a thick jacket buttoned-up to her pale chin. She flicked the end of one lekku in a gesture that, while unfamiliar to Areha, somehow gave off the same feeling as a human rolling their eyes.

"Gez doesn't want to risk his precious gear in with all of our common equipment," Sienn explained. She was also keeping her voice down; Areha wasn't sure if they were doing so to be polite or because they feared that Gez—or Lssk—would drag them into the argument if they drew attention to themselves.

"What's he got that's so delicate?" Areha asked, matching her volume to theirs. She was a little surprised to see Gez acting so precious over his possessions. None of them—as far as she knew at least—were rookies, and fighter pilots learned quickly how to bounce between bases with little concern for what they brought with them. If it wasn't something that could be packed fast and squeezed into the tight confines of a snubfighter's tiny storage space, it wasn't something you owned for long.

Sienn's lips curled in a crooked smirk and she said, "Don't you remember what Captain Ortellan said his specialty was?"

It took Areha a minute; during introductions she had instead been concentrating on pinning names to faces so that she would be able to recognize all her squadronmates, figuring that she would learn more about their skills as she got to know them better. Then it clicked: "Demolitions. Ah."

Tanett snorted. "I'd just as soon he _was_ precious about his stuff, if he's carrying anything that goes bang," he said. Areha agreed fervently.

"Hang on," she said, leaning around Sienn to look at the Corellian. "You're communications, right? Aren't you concerned about your special gear?" She thought about how casually she had plopped her two plump duffles down on top of Tanett's bag.

He grinned carelessly. "Nah," he said, "I wrap anything sensitive in my dirty socks. The stink acts like an oscillating shield, keeps it from getting bumped and bruised."

Areha laughed. Sienn wrinkled her nose but her face was twisted in a reluctant smile as she said, "Humans are disgusting."

"Hey," Tanett protested, "I'll have you know I got up a whole ten minutes early so I could take a sanisteam! That's ten minutes I could have been sleeping, sacrificed to the sensitive olfactory organs of my new squadronmates. The least you could do is show a little appreciation."

Sienn's lekku twisted in the same eye-roll-like gesture she had made earlier. "And yet, you're still covered in fur, so I don't think your sanisteam went deep enough."

Tanett looked down at himself and then back up at the Twi'lek. He was pouting. Areha had to bite her lip to restrain a giggle. "I'm not covered in fur," he said in a wounded voice.

"Tsk." Sienn clicked her tongue against her teeth and reached over, flicking a few of Tanett's tiny black braids with a callused finger. "There's all this here, and on your arms, and your legs, and your middle, and your gr—"

"Whoa, hey!" Tanett fended off her prodding fingers before she could poke him anywhere sensitive. "You don't get clearance to know how I style _that_ hair until at _least_ our third conversation. Or my fifth drink. Whichever comes first. You know, I bet there'll be a bar on base, if you're curious." He waggled his eyebrows, the unscarred one bouncing higher than the other.

Sienn shuddered and laughed. "You are vile," she said, but there was no sting in her words.

"Guilty as charged," he said cheerfully. He caught Areha's eye and winked and she had to stuff her fingers in her mouth to keep from laughing.

They settled back and watched as the rest of the squadron trooped onto the shuttle. A few of the pilots looked tired but most had that strained, jittery look that came from running off too much caff and too few hours in bed. Areha hoped that once they made it into the swaddling monotony of hyperspace the chatter would die down and she could try to snatch a few hours of sleep before they arrived at whatever base they were going to be staging from. Sleep caught sitting upright in crash restraints wasn't the best kind of sleep, but it was better than none at all.

Eventually Gez reached a satisfactory agreement with Lssk—or gave up—and allowed his bags to be stowed with the rest of their gear. Shoulders slumped, the dejected Rodian chose a seat at the far end of the opposite row and buckled himself into his crash restraints with sulky precision. Treen flopped into the seat next to him and gave him a comradely slap on the knee that made Gez jump. "Buck-up, kid," she told him, her face expressionless but her voice cheerful, "if it blows and kills us all, we'll make sure the squid-head gets the blame." Then she snapped her own webbing into place, leaned back in her chair and, as far as Areha could tell, went instantly to sleep.

Gez gaped at the burly human woman. Kaden, sitting on the other side of Treen, dissolved in silent giggles and buried her face in her hands. Leeso, sitting next to the petite Zabrak, sighed and shook her head.

Jaen was the last of the pilots to board, stammering apologies and almost dropping the numerous bags he was trying to carry all in one load. Tanett, who hadn't buckled in yet, jumped up to help him stuff it all into the storage lockers. There was plenty of room left over when he was done; pilots tended to travel light and shuttles like this were designed to transport a lot more cargo than the personal possessions of a dozen people. Areha assumed that the storage spaces under their seats were already full of parts or provisions that would be needed at the base; there was no sense sending off a ship half-empty.

Captain Ortellan gave the two men a sidelong glance as she walked up the boarding ramp. It closed behind her. "We were starting to think you'd decided to decline the post," she told Jaen. Tanett prudently chose to return to his seat without comment, leaving the blue-skinned Twi'lek to face the XO alone.

He gulped and started to explain: "I'd requisitioned some files from medical but they hadn't realized that by 'first thing this morning' I meant _literally_ first thing, so they weren't ready when I got there, and I had to wait for them to pull the datacards I'd—"

Ortellan didn't seem to be listening. She kept walking as Jaen talked, the human woman exchanging terse nods with Lssk and Leeso before she climbed up the ladder to the cockpit. Her prosthetic hands clanked on the rungs. Jaen fell silent, staring after her with a hurt look on his face, and then scrambled to strap himself into the empty seat next to Areha as the engines whined. Sienn laughed and said something in what was probably Ryl—a language that Areha did not speak—and Jaen's blue cheeks darkened but he didn't reply.

Areha wondered if she should move so that the two Twi'leks could sit next to each other but before she could make up her mind whether offering to do so would be interpreted as polite or xenophobic, the shuttle rose onto its repulsorlifts and made the gesture a moot point. She thought it was odd that General Macklen had said nothing to them prior to their departure—and nor had Captain Ortellan—but decided they were probably just waiting until they landed to address the squadron. At that point everyone would—hopefully—be a little more awake, and they could be given more details about their new home too. Operational security would preclude them being told where it was or too much about its layout until they got there in case their shuttle was intercepted; even once they arrived it was possible they might not be allowed to know the location of the base. The secrecy didn't bother Areha; it wasn't the fact that she didn't know where she was going that had her nerves singing now, but rather the fact that she didn't know who was flying her there. As a pilot, Areha disliked being flown by other people especially when she didn't know who they were—or how good they were.

She settled back in her chair, closed her eyes, and tried to enjoy the ride.

"What files?"

Her eyes flew open again and she turned to look at the speaker: Berjeleth, his mechanical voice grating and inflectionless.

"Sorry?" Jaen looked up when Areha elbowed him. "What?"

"What files?" Berjeleth repeated now that the Twi'lek was looking at him. "Our medical histories are attached to our personnel files and will be accessible at the next base. So what files did you need from medical before we left?"

"Oh." Jaen's cheeks darkened again; a blush, Areha thought, although his blue skin did not flush the same deep reds or browns that humans did when they blushed. "Well, I wasn't sure how long our trip would be, and I thought it might be a good opportunity to do some advance reading."

"Reading about what?" Kaden leaned forward curiously; next to her, Treen slept stoically, undisturbed by her companions' talk or movement.

Jaen's lekku twisted. He looked uncomfortable. When he spoke the words came slowly, as if he wasn't sure he wanted to share them. "About...different medical conditions. And treatments. And baseline standards in different species." He chewed his lip—Areha was surprised that it did not hurt, with his teeth filed as they were—and at last said in a voice thick with reluctance, "I've never been in charge of a unit's medical care before."

"You don't have medic experience?" That was Areha, the question jumping from her lips before she could stop herself. She sounded surprised rather than accusatory at least, but she still wished she hadn't said it when Jaen hunched in on himself, mirroring Gez's usual stunted posture.

"I do," he said in a small voice. "But only assisting. I've never been primary. I mean—I guess everyone starts sometime, but...I didn't realize it would be quite this soon." He smiled weakly. It occurred to Areha that he looked _very_ young. "I do _have_ medical training," Jaen assured them all, "not just the bits and tricks I picked-up on Nar Shaddaa's streets. But I don't know if you've ever stopped to think about it, but every species is different."

"No, really?" Leeso muttered, not bothering to look at the rest of them. Lssk clacked his beak chidingly and she fell silent.

"Well," Jaen explained, his cheeks now a deep indigo, "that means that their _treatment_ has to be different. Bacta is relatively universal thankfully, but even that doesn't work exactly the same in everybody, and some things work very differently across species lines. For instance, neospun is a useful antibiotic and analgesic for Twi'leks, humans, and Cathar, among others, but to Duros it's also a sedative and it's toxic to Rodians." He shrugged. "That's the kind of thing I'll need to know, by heart, so I'm not taking the time to look it up in the heat of battle or maybe when I don't have access to a hypercomm unit or medical encyclopedia datapad, if I'm going to be in charge of this unit's medical care. And until this morning, all I knew about neospun were its antibiotic and analgesic qualities." He straightened his shoulders and met their staring eyes straight-on. "So _that_ is the kind of information I requested from medical. Now, does anyone mind if I get started on my research?"

Nobody argued. Jaen pulled out his datapad, inserted a datacard, and bent low over his reading. He didn't speak again.

Through the thin plasteel cushion on her seat, Areha felt the telltale shudder of a ship lurching into hyperspace.

"And away we go," Gez muttered.

Tanett flashed him a grin. "Off into the great unknown, eh?"

Gez hesitated. Areha wasn't an expert on Rodian facial expressions, but she thought he looked suddenly evasive. "Well…maybe not totally unknown," he mumbled. The other pilots perked-up, turning to stare at him.

Before Gez could say anything else Lssk cleared his throat and sat forward with a glare. "If anyone might be, for any reason, privy to sensitive operational details that they do not have a legitimate reason for knowing, it would be best if they kept those details to themselves, I think."

Gez wilted and mumbled something under his breath. Areha caught the tail end of it: "—not _trying_ to find out."

Lssk _hmphed_ , a rough and gurgling sound, and sat back in his chair. "Place leaked like a sieve," he grumbled. Areha knew he was talking about the base they had just left; while all of Starfighter Command—all of the New Republic military, really—had been rife with rumors, she had noticed in her weeks assigned there that Krenott Base had been particularly efficient at passing around speculative information. She hadn't heard that it was victim to many _actual_ leaks of classified data, though; just the usual sort of gossip that pervaded military ranks.

Kaden cocked her head sideways. "So how _did_ you learn our destination?" she asked Gez. "Not a detail that I am asking you to share, mind you," she added, holding up a hand to forestall Lssk's inevitable objection, "but I am curious to know how the knowledge came into your possession, if you do not mind me asking."

"I didn't slice it out of the computers or anything if that's what you're thinking," he said with a mutinous glare at Lssk, who ignored him. "I was just, er, _talking_ to one of the mechanics, and he was complaining about having to service this shuttle when it came in, and it being a rush-job to get it ready to go back out again…"

"And he let slip where it was headed?" Mondalnan guessed.

"More or less," Gez mumbled. He rubbed the tip of his snout, embarrassed. "He _might_ have been showing-off a little."

"Pillow talk?" Sienn suggested, her voice dry.

Gez's cheeks turned emerald and he stammered something unintelligible. Several of the pilots chuckled. Areha was intrigued; she had had no idea that Rodians blushed.

"Always a good idea to get on the good side of the mechanics," Tanett observed slyly. More people laughed. A strange noise drew Areha's attention to the other side of the shuttle: a wheezing mechanical rasp. When she saw that Berjeleth's shoulders were shaking, she realized that must be the sound his vocabulator made when he laughed. She smiled, feeling a little better about the brutal sight of his ravaged face now that she knew his prosthetic had been programmed to simulate laughter.

"So, you left a sweetheart behind?" Tanett asked after the laughter settled down.

"Oh no," Gez said quickly, "no that's a terrible idea. Trying to maintain a relationship with someone on a different base? When you can't—or at least, you aren't _supposed_ to even know where each other are?" He sneaked a guilty look at Lssk, who continued to ignore him. "Or know if you'll both live long enough to see each other again? No that's a recipe for disaster." He shook his head emphatically. "I…tried that once. Didn't end well."

Most of the other pilots nodded or murmured sympathetically; they had all learned that lesson in one fashion or another. Even Jaen glanced up from his reading to shoot the Rodian a sad smile. Something about both Redun and Sienn's responses seemed off—somehow artificial—to Areha, though. She tried not to read too much into it; she didn't know anything about Cathar body language and she'd already discovered that lekku-signing involved very different nonverbal gestures than she was used to. Probably Areha just wasn't translating the signals right and when she got to know the two of them better she would be more adept at reading their nonverbal cues. She had never been in close proximity to a Cathar before and none of her close friends had been Twi'leks prior to this; there would be a learning curve in adjusting to their species' idiosyncrasies.

She sighed; getting used to a new group of allies was always difficult.

Areha hitched her crash restraints into a more comfortable position and tried to think of something to say to Sienn. The woman was going to be her wingmate and she wanted to make a good impression, but through the haze of caff-stimulated nerves everything she thought of sounded stupid when she tried it out in her head.

Before she could think of anything good, she fell asleep.

The sharp deceleration out of hyperspace woke her and she looked around blearily, not understanding at first where she was or why she was surrounded by so many strangers. Names came back to her quickly, names and callsigns, and Areha remembered: she was on her way to her new assignment and these were the pilots she would be flying with when she got there.

Most of the other Exogorths were rubbing sleep from their eyes, stretching in their crash restraints, or otherwise shaking themselves awake. Jaen's face was pinched and he was still bent over his datapad; he didn't look like he'd slept a wink. Treen and Redun were both still asleep, the latter snoring. It was a low, almost musical rumble, not unpleasant to the ear. She wasn't sure if Tanett felt the same; since Redun was currently napping on his shoulder, the Corellian man had a much closer vantage point for the nasal symphony. He caught sight of Areha peeking at him and gave her a rueful grin but made no effort to dislodge the dozing Cathar. She looked away quickly before she laughed.

"I wish this crate had windows," Leeso muttered. "I hate approaching blind, especially when someone else is flying." From the quietness of her tone it was probably meant to be a private comment to Lssk, who sat next to her, rather than an announcement to the whole squadron but with no sounds in the small shuttle other than the soft pops and creaks of metal under pressure, the complaint might as well have been shouted through a bullhorn.

"Just as well there aren't," Lssk replied, his gravely words no louder than Leeso's had been and every bit as audible. "We'd just have to blank the viewports so no one—no one _else_ ," he amended pointedly, leaning forward to shoot a glare at the hapless Gez "—picks up on any classified details about the place."

"So this base's location is undisclosed?"

"To everyone except the general and the shuttle pilots."

Leeso nodded. "Interesting," she said, her tone inscrutable.

Areha sat back in her seat feeling a trickle of excitement run through her veins despite the groggy, manky, half-awake feeling of waking from an unsatisfying nap. If operational security required that the personnel stationed here be kept in the dark about their location, odds were good that they staged missions directly from this base rather than transiting between systems on larger ships first. She wasn't sure what that meant; even those snubfighters that had built-in hyperdrives were not usually equipped for long journeys, so logic would dictate that they were somewhere not too many hours travel from an active combat theater, but which one? Of course, they could always utilize tanker ships for refueling mid-route in order to extend a snubfighter's reach—but that seemed an unnecessarily tedious and time-consuming addition to what would otherwise be a straightforward mission. More likely the base _was_ somewhere within easy snubfighter strike-distance of wherever they would be focusing their efforts, but since she didn't even know if they would be assigned to strike against the dwindling Empire or one of the scattered warlords, that didn't do much to help her narrow their possible location down.

 _You're not supposed to know where you are anyway_ , Areha reminded herself silently. _So stop guessing!_

She was obligingly distracted by the crackle of the inter-ship intercom coming online:

"Attention pilots. We are now on final approach to Quorloth Base, your home for the foreseeable future." Captain Ortellan's no-nonsense tones were clear despite the distortion of the battered vocabulator. Treen came awake immediately but Redun only woke when Tanett poked him in the side. The XO told them all, "Estimated local time at our arrival will be shortly after oh-two-hundred hours, so after you're distributed to your quarters you will have a few hours to settle in, unpack…or just squeeze in a little more sleep." Oretllan paused to let the chuckles fade before she continued: "We will assemble in Hanger Besh—the same hanger we will be docking in—at 0700. At that point we will assign you all to your primary fighters. We will spend the day familiarizing you with your new vehicles and one another's flying style so uniform of the day is flight suits and helmets. You'll find your gear in your quarters. Check it over and if there are any problems report them to me immediately. You've all got my comlink frequency in your orders packet—unless you've lost that already, in which case I suggest you find a sympathetic squadronmate to get it from so you don't have to admit your kriff-up to me."

There was a long pause, punctuated by the gentle thud of the shuttle's repulsors shutting down and leaving them standing on the floor of the hanger. Then a light, rhythmic clanging preceded Ortellan climbing back down the ladder. She turned sharply and eyed the waiting pilots. "Any questions?" she asked. There were none. "Very well—dismissed. Don't forget to take your belongings. We aren't running a hotel and the only porter around here delivers straight to the base incinerator." She smiled thinly. The pilots grinned, rocked to their feet, helped one another out of their crash restraints, and began the semi-controlled chaos of sorting out everyone's gear from the haphazard pile of bags and boots.

Half a time part later, Areha and Sienn were standing in their new room, looking around.

"Cozy," Sienn said.

Their quarters were in keeping with the style of the rest of the base: plain, functional, streamlined, and cramped. Most of the walls were prefab snap-together plasteel, gray and unadorned with equally plain glowpanels at regular intervals; some of the hallways were crude rock that looked like they had been carved by a half-functional droid with a crude pair of laser-cutters. The gravity had that odd, oscillating sort of bounce that meant it was being artificially generated and halfway down the hallway between the hanger and the pilots' dormitories Areha had felt a strange swooping sensation in her stomach like she had just jumped out of an upper-atmo speeder: the mark of crossing from one gravity generator to another. Her bet was for a small moon, although Mondalnan insisted they must be on an asteroid. Wherever they were, it obviously wasn't somewhere with an overabundance of space.

The room she would be sharing with Sienn had two bunks stacked along one wall, a small refresher tucked into the back wall, and two battered plasteel storage crates that could double as seats when their lids were shut. Whoever had had the room last had apparently used them for just that, because they had left two mismatched cushions behind. There was enough room for two people to pass each other between the bunks and the crates but if either she or Sienn had been possessed of broad shoulders or big bellies it would have been a tight fit.

Areha giggled. When Sienn shot her a curious look she explained: "I was just thinking that it's a good thing Treen is rooming with Leeso. If she was in with anybody else they would have to climb into the bunks to squeeze past each other."

Sienn laughed. "True," she said. "That woman is one impressive specimen. Just thinking about how cramped she has to be in a cockpit makes my shoulders sore."

Areha nodded vehemently. "I think I want to be her when I grow up," she joked, and they both giggled.

Sienn sobered first. "Oh, we are punch-drunk," she observed.

"Uh-huh," agreed Areha, and they giggled again.

She pulled herself back under control before she got hysterical; it wasn't easy. "Okay," she said, taking a deep breath, "we need sleep. Let's look at our gear and make sure it's all here and functional and call it a night. Or morning, whatever it is. Sound good?"

Sienn yawned so widely that Areha was afraid she was going to pull something. "Sounds _great_ ," she said fervently. They knelt by the crates and got to work.

When the emergency sirens went off four hours later, Areha felt like she had barely closed her eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

Jaen and his wingman were the last to leave the shuttle; he had had more possessions to gather than any of the other pilots. Tanett had slung several of Jaen's bags over his shoulders without bothering to ask. It made Jaen nervous but he clamped-down on the feeling, reminding himself that he wasn't on Nar Shaddaa anymore; kindness did not always carry a cost. It still made him uncomfortable, the casual familiarity and easy way that New Republic starfighter pilots offered each other assistance, but it was a good uncomfortable—mostly. It was one more reminder that he was far, far away from the ugly place where he had grown up. It was nice to be around people who didn't bank favors like credit chips, who weren't constantly looking for a good place to stick a vibroblade in your side, and who helped one another simply because they were allies and that was what allies _did_ —not because they expected to get something in return.

Jaen walked a little faster until he caught up with the black-skinned human. "Thanks," he said softly, even managing a smile.

"No problem," said Tanett, hardly seeming to hear him; hardly seeming to hear his own automatic response. "What is all this stuff, anyway?" he asked. They turned down the corridor away from the hanger and deeper into the base, trailing behind the other pilots as they all followed Captain Ortellan to the quarters they had been assigned.

"Medical gear," Jaen replied. "I wasn't sure what I would need, or what the base here would be stocked with, or what I'd be able to requisition, so I just brought some of…well, more or less some of everything." He could feel heat rising in his cheeks and knew he was visibly blushing.

Tanett laughed at him. It didn't sound like a malicious laugh. "Better to be prepared, eh?" he said. "That's a good attitude in a medic. I like that."

Jaen felt a little bit of the weight on his shoulders ease. "Thanks for the approval," he said drily, trying not to sound like he meant it—but he did. He was more nervous about this assignment than he wanted any of his squadronmates to suspect. He knew he had training on-par with most squadron medics in the fleet; what he lacked was experience. Of course, he'd had plenty of experience in patching people up using odds, ends, and a lot of luck back on Nar Shaddaa—but that wasn't the same as practicing doctoring in proper medical facilities under the supervision of trained medical staff. He couldn't think why General Macklen would choose a rookie medic like him for this post—unless the New Republic was more desperate for trained medical personnel than they let on.

He cast about for something to say to distract himself from his thoughts before he voiced them aloud. "So how does somebody end up a communications officer, anyway?" he asked and immediately winced. As far as conversational gambits went, that one had been pathetic. He opened his mouth to try and salvage it, but Tanett was already responding:

"Oh, that's a long story," he said dismissively, voice overly casual, "you don't want to hear that."

Suddenly Jaen _did_ want to hear the story. There were only two ways that you could go if you grew up on Nar Shaddaa: either you honed minding your own business to such a fine art form that you wouldn't have noticed someone being shot dead right under your nose, or you learned how to sniff-out every secret within ten parsecs. Jaen had _tried_ to cultivate the former attitude, but—often to his detriment—he had an undeniable knack for the latter. "Oh come on," he said, his tone dipping toward what might charitably be described as _wheedling_ , "I already told my embarrassing tale of inexperience and woe. The least you can do is share whatever story you've got." When Tanett hesitated, looking unconvinced, Jaen added bitterly, "I'll bet this isn't _your_ first assignment as a unit's primary comm officer." He didn't consider himself an expert at gauging human ages but if pressed, he would have guessed that Tanett was at least five years older than him—and training to use communication tech probably didn't take as many years as medical studies either.

"It's not." Tanett shrugged, making the bags dangling from his shoulders bounce. "Okay, fine. But let's wait 'til we get to our quarters for storytime. The captain is bound to tell us where the mess hall is on our way, and I don't want to miss those directions." He grinned and Jaen had to grin back.

"Me neither," he said. Jaen could recognize a delaying tactic when one stared him in the face, but he also knew that Tanett had a good point. They would _definitely_ want to know where they could find some breakfast before they had to report to the hanger for their first day of squadron training. Besides, there was no harm in giving Tanett a few minutes to order his thoughts before he told his story. The man _was_ helping carry Jaen's bags. He owed him that much courtesy, at least.

As soon as the door to their small, spartan room hissed closed behind them and they dumped their baggage on the bunks Jaen turned to his wingmate and said, "Okay, so?"

Tanett laughed. "You're tenacious. All right, I suppose that's another good quality in a medic—and it's _definitely_ a good quality in someone who's going to be watching my back in a dogfight. All right, fine. Just…let me think where to start." He shook his head and opened his storage unit where an orange flightsuit, life support chest pack, helmet, and other basic pilot gear was waiting for him. Jaen bent down to check through his own gear to make sure it was all accounted for and functional, but he kept glancing up at Tanett as he worked.

He was short for a human, but of course Jaen was short for a Twi'lek; while the only requirement for being a snubfighter pilot in the New Republic's military was being able to fit in the cockpit, pilots had a tendency to be short, slight, or both. Tanett, like Jaen, was both. He would have to compare their heights in a mirror—or check the stats on Tanett's medical files—to figure out which of them was taller, but they were definitely within a few centimeters of one another's height. Tanett's build was a little more muscular, he saw as the other man unzipped his jumpsuit to the waist and let the sleeves flop down behind him to free his arms so he could dig through the supplies unencumbered. It was a bit warm in their room—Jaen wasn't sure if that was a regular facet of the base, or if their thermostat had gone wonky—but he left his own clothes as they were.

Finally Tanett rocked back on his heels, ran a hand through his delicate braids, and barked a laugh. "Let's just cut to the chase," he said. He glanced sideways at Jaen and his mouth twisted into a wry smile that lacked any real humor. "How did I end up as a comm specialist?" he said. "The Empire trained me that way."

Jaen's lekku slipped limply from his shoulders—an involuntary reaction of pure shock—and he stared. "The Empire?" he repeated.

Tanett nodded. "Yep," he said. He was still smiling but the expression was strained and the skin around his eyes had gone tight. "I used to fly TIEs for them. That's where I learned to pilot—and where I learned to use all that fancy communication gear." He nodded toward the two bags he had tossed on his bed. One had come half-unzipped and had spilled some strangely-lumpy clothing across the faded blanket. Jaen guessed that those shapes were a result of the clothes being wrapped around Tanett's special gear as a sort of makeshift padding.

When Jaen turned back Tanett was no longer looking at him; he kept his eyes fixed on the life support gear in front of him, methodically checking each dial and readout with an intensity that would have made any training master proud. Jaen didn't think his fixation was born out of a concern for his gear though, but rather out of a determination to avoid looking at his wingmate while he spoke.

"My training officer noticed I had a knack with it—frequencies and jamming and stuff, you know?" Tanett said. "Well, you don't exactly say no when somebody recommends you for some extra training in the Imperial Academy, so I took the courses." He wasn't smiling any more although he was obviously making an effort to keep his voice light. He only somewhat succeeded. "Turns out I _did_ have a knack for it. And like most tech-nerds who have a knack for something, I played around with it in my off-hours, too. Heard some things I wasn't supposed to—coded transmissions, private chatter, that sort of stuff. It…opened my eyes." He risked a glance at Jaen and mustered-up a sour smile. "Well, my ears anyway."

Jaen thought he should probably smile back but before he could manage it, Tanett had looked away again.

"I knew I couldn't stay. Not with knowing what the Empire was really up to, the kind of things it was really doing." He paused and when he continued his voice was softer. "No, I always knew what they were _doing_ because I was one of the people _doing_ it. I'm not trying to—to excuse myself. I just always thought the _reasons_ we were doing those things were good ones. Good _enough_ ones, anyway." Tanett cleared his throat a few times before he could continue. "Turns out they weren't. Turns out they never were. So, well, I left."

"…Just like that?" Jaen asked, voice tentative. He didn't want to interrupt—and he definitely didn't want Tanett to think he was trying to make him feel worse than he clearly already did—but from everything he knew about the Empire, it wasn't an organization that was easy to walk away from.

Tanett actually laughed. It seemed to surprise him and he sobered quickly. "No," he said, and his smile this time was still sour but no longer strained. "No, not just like that. But you survive a few years flying those shieldless tin deathtraps the Imps call snubfighters and you pick up a few tricks. So I packed some datacards with every bit of useful information and code frequencies I could get my hands on, did a little creative sabotage, and got myself shot down on purpose the next time we were in an engagement with Rebel forces— _actual_ Rebel forces I mean, as in New Republic; the Empire tended to call anybody we were shooting at 'Rebels' without bothering to make distinctions between New Republic military units and unaffiliated pirates and things like that. And I didn't want to get shot-down by pirates."

"Probably a good idea," Jaen said delicately. He had met a few pirates on Nar Shaddaa. Most of them were not people whose hospitality he would have wanted to depend on.

"So, the Empire left me for dead—they make TIEs disposable for a reason, after all—and I managed to live through my semi-controlled crash. By the time I crawled out of the wreckage I was surrounded by New Republic ground troops and I…well, I think what I actually said was, 'It's about time you guys got here. Now bring me some bacta and a datapad hookup, I've got a lot of info you'll want to see.'"

"You said what?" Jaen almost laughed.

Tanett looked sheepish. "I'm not entirely sure. I was a little out of it at the time on account of, er, being on fire."

"Being on fire?" Jaen repeated. The tips of his lekku curled incredulously.

Tanett shrugged. "I did say it was a semi-controlled crash, right? TIE Interceptors aren't exactly the most durable ships on the market."

"So the Republic fished you out of your burning snubfighter and just…plopped you in an A-Wing?"

"A Y-Wing first, actually," Tanett corrected him. "They wouldn't hand the fancy new hardware over to somebody they thought might be an Imp spy. And the only reason they let me get my hands on one of _those_ was because enough of my information checked-out that they decided I was probably legit—and my simulator scores showed I was a damn fine pilot, even in a ponderous old wishbone. Still took me two years of flying non-essential missions before I earned enough trust to be placed in a proper squadron." He scratched the back of his neck, looking embarrassed, and added in a mutter, "The whole being-on-fire-thing probably helped with that trust, too."

"I expect so," Jaen said in a very dry voice. "Not many double agents would go to the extreme of igniting themselves to make their story look legit."

Tanett laughed awkwardly. "Actually, knowing how insane most of Imperial Intelligence was, at least when Isard was in charge of it, they probably _would_."

Jaen shuddered. "I'll take your word for that," he said, and meant it. He wondered if he ought to make some kind of gesture—put a hand on Tanett's shoulder, say something about the reliability of defectors, _something_ …but he couldn't think what to say and he didn't feel comfortable making a physical overture to a stranger.

"Well," Tannet said after letting the silence stretch on for a moment, "there's my story. Sorry you asked?"

Jaen looked up from his thoughts, confused. "What?" he said. "No, why?" He frowned. "You do remember that I'm a _medic_ , right? It'll take more than a story about a few burns to turn my stomach."

"No, no I mean—" Tanett shook his head, looking uncertain. "I mean, because I used to be an Imp."

Jaen twirled a lekku in a "so what?" gesture, then remembered he was talking to a human, and raised his shoulders in a shrug instead. "So were most of the original members of the Rebellion," he pointed out.

"Yeah," said Tanett, "but that was a little different. I was part of the Empire when it was _fighting_ the Rebels. I was _at Endor_. I was at a _lot_ of battles. I shot down—" He grimaced and forced himself to meet Jaen's eyes. "I shot down a lot of Rebels. Maybe even people you knew." His dark eyes were hollow. He looked tense, as though anticipating a blow. "Maybe your friends."

Jaen thought a moment then shook his head. "Not if it's been more than two years since you joined the New Republic," he said.

"Five," Tanett croaked.

"Well I've been here barely two, so no, you can't have shot down anybody I knew here." Jaen smiled. "And if you were one of the Imperials who burned parts of Nar Shaddaa, I should probably thank you."

Tanett let out a surprised bark of laughter and his shoulders relaxed. "Not a lot of good memories?" he asked lightly, clearly curious and resisting the urge to pry outright.

"Not really," said Jaen, his voice dry. "Let's just say that getting off that slimeball of a planet was the best thing that ever happened to me and leave it at that."

"Hmm…all right," said Tanett. He was suddenly back to what seemed to be his usual, cheerful self. "Of course, it's hardly fair that I've aired my dirtiest laundry when all you did was confess you're a little inexperienced—but we'll leave it there for now, sure. There'll be plenty of chances for more storytime later. For now, we both—but especially you—could use some sleep before we go back on duty."

Jaen frowned. "Why 'especially me'?" he asked, suspicous. He had been about to argue that he didn't have any other confessions that were worth sharing but was distracted from that line of conversation by what sounded like a slight against his abilities.

"Because you didn't sleep at all on the flight in. Don't try and deny it," Tanett said, before Jaen could speak. "You know you didn't, and I know you didn't, and we both know you need to. I'm not exactly feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed myself, and I _did_ get a few hours of sleep in the shuttle. So let's call it a night…and we'll resume the interrogation at a better time." He winked.

Jaen would have protested but Tanett was already shucking-off his jumpsuit and undershirt and heading for the 'fresher. Any argument he would have made died at the sight of the half-naked human—not because Jaen had never seen a half-naked human before, because growing-up on Nar Shaddaa meant he had seen more than a few half-naked _everythings_ —but because Tanett's legs were not the same rich, brown-black color as the rest of his skin. Instead they were a shiny pink and brown patchwork of glossy scar tissue. Medical training or not, Jaen could not help but stare. He had never seen burns that extensive before—not on someone still alive, anyway. They covered the entirety of Tanett's legs from his toes all the way up to his thighs with tendrils stretching up even under the hem of his shorts.

Fortunately Tanett didn't notice Jaen staring since he had already walked past him to the refresher and he closed the door without turning around. By the time he finished with his nightly ablutions Jaen had gotten a hold of himself and could quite calmly ask Tanett which bunk he preferred before slipping into the 'fresher to change and do his own washing-up.

"And no reading on your datapad after I turn the lights out!" Tanett commanded as they stretched out on their narrow bunks. "I'm pulling rank, so consider it an order."

"You don't outrank me," Jaen protested.

"Seniority says I do," Tanett replied smugly and turned the lights out.

Jaen would have argued but he really _was_ tired. Before he could think of a clever retort, he was asleep.

The klaxons of an emergency siren had him on his feet again before he'd gotten his eyes open. Tanett woke swearing and rolled out of his bunk and onto the floor; from the way he lunged straight for his flightsuit, he might have done it on purpose. For once Jaen didn't waste any time feeling uncomfortable at dressing in front of someone else; he dragged his flightsuit on right over his sleep-clothes and shoved his bare feet into his boots. Tanett took a moment to pull on socks—probably a _very_ good idea with his scarred feet, Jaen thought—but made up for it by not bothering to zip his flightsuit until they were already running down the corridor.

Other pilots stumbled from their rooms along the hallway in various states of dress and undress. Mondalnan was already buckling his helmet, looking as meticulously put-together as if he had just come from a briefing. On the other hand, Redun was wearing nothing but shorts and was simply carrying his flightsuit and life support gear; he didn't stop to dress until they reached the hanger.

"What's going on?" Jaen shouted when he saw Lssk. The Quarren shook his head grimly and didn't answer.

Captain Ortellan, wearing an open jacket and unzipped boots over nothing but a long nightshirt, was waiting for them in the hanger. Her shirt flapped like a pale flag around her gold-brown legs. "The base is under attack," she bellowed over the wails of the sirens and the shouted orders of the other officers and flight leaders who were also spilling into the crowded hanger. "Those are our ships." She pointed to a cluster of twelve A-Wings, all of which looked like they had seen battle before, resting on their landing struts near the wall. "Just pick one and get in the air, we don't have time to organize things properly—I'm sorry. Stick with your wingmates and try not to die. I'll give you more information over the comms as soon as I get it."

Nobody wasted time asking stupid questions; the pilots of the brand new Exorgorth Squadron ran to their ships as fast as they could. Jaen paused to slide his lekku into the insulated sleeves of his helmet and noticed that Tanett limped a little as he ran. The medic frowned, wondering if his wingmate's scars were stiff in the cold air of the magcon-shielded hanger. There wasn't anything to do about it now though; Jaen buckled his helmet and ran to the nearest unclaimed A-Wing. He glanced back as he clambered up the ladder to his ship and saw Captain Ortellan exchanging shouts with a portly human in stained orange coveralls—probably a mechanic. Jaen gulped, hoping that that didn't mean one of their ships still needed servicing, and looked around his cockpit.

It looked like a standard Incom RZ-1 A-wing Mark II design which was good, because he didn't have time to familiarize himself with any strange settings or exotic features. He fumbled under the seat until he found the knobs that let him adjust the height and length of the seat, fiddling until he sat comfortably within reach of all the pedals and controls. Whoever had flown this ship last had been a lot taller than him—or else someone had obligingly taken the time to adjust it to the height of one of his tallest squadronmates ahead of time, a friendly gesture of welcome that Jaen had now erased.

It didn't matter; the important thing now was to get through his pre-flight checklist as quickly as he could so that he could get his ship in the air before whoever was bearing down on their base turned this hanger—and everything in it—into slag.

A chirp on the comlink drew his attention and he spent a moment figuring out how to dial-in to the squadron's frequency. "—tention Exogorths, repeat, attention Exorgorths. Call in by the numbers, please."

"One here, all in the green and ready to fly."

"Two, port engine sluggish, coming online now."

"Three. Starting up."

"Four here. Uh, I still need a moment to spool-up everything, but it's looking good so far."

"Five. Prepared."

"Six. The ship is slow but I am ready to fight."

"Seven, warming engines. Preflight in progress."

"Eight reporting. All satisfactory so far. Checks should be completed in moments."

"Nine here." That was Tanett's voice, sounding cheerful even through the comm distortion. "Still spooling-up, but no red lights yet."

It was Jaen's turn. He scanned his read-outs quickly and said, "Ten almost ready. Checks out fine so far."

"Eleven. Just going to need a minute here to get everything fired-up. Sorry."

"Twelve. I'm prepped. Do we know who we're shooting yet?"

Oretllan's voice came back over the comm, hurried but crisp: "Sensors report two Imperial Star Destroyers. Presume standard complements of snubfighters, but no confirmation on that yet. We don't have any data on their origins but it's a safe bet they're hostile."

Jaen smiled thinly. He had yet to meet a Star Destroyer that wasn't—although he knew the New Republic had captured and repurposed a few; he just hadn't had the mixed pleasure of flying into battle alongside one himself. He wasn't sure how he would feel about trying to look at that sharp, grim, triangular profile as an ally. For now it was more important to find out about what allies they had today, but Leeso was inquiring already before Jaen had a chance to ask:

"What are our forces here?"

"One X-Wing squadron, two Y-Wing squadrons, and an assortment of shuttles and supply craft. I'm not sure of the exact number and makes there, sorry." Ortellan sounded unhappy, probably feeling guilty for trying to snatch a few hours of rest herself instead of getting familiarized with every inch of their new home—as though she could have predicted this surprise assault and known to prepare for imminent battle as soon as they arrived. "We have no capital ships," she added.

A chill ran up Jaen's spine and his fingers—busy flipping switches and adjusting dials and settings—stilled for a moment. The sound of someone's breath hitching in his ear told him that at least one other pilot was just as horrified by that announcement as he was; more likely they all were, and were just reacting too quietly for their cockpit comms to picks-up on the sounds of shock and dismay.

"No capital ships?" Areha repeated in a small, strangled voice.

"No." Ortellan didn't have to say anything else; they all knew what that meant. Two Star Destroyers against nothing but snubfighters? The Republic forces didn't stand a chance of victory. They would be lucky to delay the Star Destroyers long enough for the base to evacuate before it was slagged into dust.

Jaen swallowed hard and tried to prep his fighter faster.

After a long, grim moment of silence, Lssk asked, "Orders?"

"Malfruit Squadron—the X-Wings—will separate into two flights to protect each Y-Wing squadron, which will each target one of the Star Destroys in an attempt to delay their assault on the base long enough for everyone to evacuate. Our primary mission is to deal with whatever starfighter screen the Destroyers field, with as much spare fire directed against the Star Destroyers as you can manage."

She didn't have to say how impossible a task that was—both that which had been assigned to the Exogorths and those given to the other squadrons. She also didn't have to say how long the odds were of any of them surviving an assault against such overwhelmingly superior numbers.

For a long moment, the whine of engines was the only sound aside from the wailing sirens.

Then Captain Ortellan said, "Launch by proximity and form-up in wing-pairs outside the hanger at point 0.345. Watch for other snubfighters as you exit; you share this hanger with Bludgeon Squadron, the senior Y-Wing group. Wait until your whole squadron is assembled, then proceed to the engagement site."

Jaen wasn't sure who was in the A-Wing closest to the magcon shield, but it rose onto its repulsorlifts smoothly and rocketed toward the open hanger doors. The next ship turned a little too fast and almost went into a spin but the pilot corrected quickly and shot toward the exit. Soon enough it was Jaen's turn; he took a moment to close his eyes, try and settle his nerves, and fill his lungs with a slow, deep breath. Then he goosed the repulsorlift thrusters and headed toward space.

He had to dodge around a floating crane that crossed his path, a reckless maneuver for the mechanic given the high speeds of A-Wing fighters, but he avoided a collision and burst through the thin barrier of the magcon field to join the five other A-Wings hovering a few meters outside the hanger.

Jaen got his first look at the base's exterior while he waited for the rest of the squadron to assemble. It had indeed been bored into a large asteroid, not a moon. Looking backwards past the base he saw that they were not in an asteroid field—that would have been a ridiculously dangerous place to stage starfighter missions from—but rather within the rings of a large blue gas giant. The combination of gravitic pull from the heavy planet below and the difficulty of navigating the dust and rocks of the thin ring were probably what had the Star Destroyers approaching at a crawl. Jaen was glad of it; despite the added dangers those elements posed to snubfighters like his A-Wing, he was sure that that was also the base's best hopes of weathering the attack long enough to evacuate its personnel.

Ortellan cleared her throat, making the comm crackle and pop, then said, "Lacking time for proper role assessments, I propose that Lieutenant Drenko take command of the squadron for the moment as he has more experience in engagements of this nature than Lieutenant Voond, despite her promotional seniority."

"Agreed," said Leeso. It was impossible to tell from her voice what she thought of the XO's decision.

"Agreed," echoed Lssk. His voice was clipped and he launched immediately into quick, sharp instructions: "All fighters, form into flight wings. Voond, Shenk, you will be lead for One and Three Flights. I have Flight Two. Proceed at two-thirds speed to the engagement zone. We will lead; count two from my mark and then follow. Three—two—one—MARK!"

Four A-Wings shot off at a fast clip; Jaen kept his eyes on Tanett's ship and counted down. Precisely at "two," Tanett goosed his thrusters and Jaen followed, tucked in tight on his wingman's tail. His nerves had his heart pounding high in his throat and he kept swallowing, trying to settle the feeling. He had never gone into battle with a wingmate—with an entire squadron—that he had never flown with before in at least simulators. He had shared a few sim-battles with Mondalnan and Redun, and he had even flown paired with Treen once, but he had flown with so many prospective pilots during the assessment period for Exogorth Squadron's assemblage that he could not remember specifics about their flying styles. He had no idea of Tanett's abilities, or those of the rest of his squadronmates, and he knew that they were equally as in the dark of his own capabilities. It was a terrible way to fly.

Lssk continued to issue orders: "At three klicks past maximum effective range, target the planetward Star Destroyer with paired concussion missiles. I will transmit targeting data; link your missiles to my target for maximum penetration possibility." A single A-Wing squadron did not have enough firepower in one salvo to take down the shields of a _Victory-_ class Star Destroyer unless they got very, very lucky, but linking their missiles to all target the same point marginally increased their astronomical odds.

Jaen glanced away from his forward viewport long enough to make the necessary adjustments to his targeting system. He spent a moment lamenting the A-Wing's lack of an onboard astromech; if he had been flying an X-Wing or even a Y-Wing the droid could have taken care of that task for him, but A-Wings—largely in order to compete with the speed of TIE fighters—had been built with no space for astromechs. They were quick-strike craft, streamlined for speed and stealth and agility. Jaen had flown A-Wings in most of his recent engagements and for the most part he preferred the swift, slim ships but whenever he was forced to split his attention between piloting duties and other tasks he was struck by a wave of nostalgia for the clunkier X-Wings and their droid assistants.

"Once your missiles are away break by pairs and engage their fighters at will." Lssk's gravelly voice turned somehow even colder as he added, "Remember that your primary mission is to engage and occupy as many Imperial fighters as possible. Leave the Star Destroyers for the Y-Wings unless you see a target of opportunity—but if you can arrange for your targets to leave their capital ships as backstops for your wild shots, do so."

"Understood," said Leeso, speaking for One Flight.

"Copy," said Tanett, doing the same for Three Flight. Jaen nodded automatically although no one could see him.

Through the transparisteel cockpit he saw that the Star Destroyers had deployed their fighters in a screen. Closer to the A-Wings, the space between them narrowing every second as the faster ships closed the distance, the two Y-Wing squadrons and their X-Wing escorts raced toward the capital ships at slightly under the older ships' top speed; Jaen assumed that they had cut their thrusters back to allow the slower members of their squadron to catch-up so they could meet the Star Destroyers as solid units rather than individual ships. It was a good, time-saving tactic, and if the A-Wings of Exogorth Squadron had not been significantly faster than the other Republic ships, they probably would have approached the battle in the same way rather than waiting to form-up as one unit before heading to the engagement zone.

"I count three squadrons of eyeballs, four of dupes, and only one of squints," Treen announced. "Not a standard complement."

"Probably tailored for maximum target destruction rather than dogfighting capabilities," Kaden suggested.

"That implies that they knew what they would be facing here," Tanett said, his voice grim.

"Enough speculation," Lssk cut-in. "Prepare for enemy contact. And may the Force be with you."


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER FOUR**

Areha fired-off her concussion missiles and immediately banked hard right, standing her A-Wing up nearly vertical in orientation to the Star Destroyer she had just fired upon. A quick check of her sensors showed that Sienn was tucked in tight on her tail; Areha breathed a small sigh of relief. Going into a combat encounter with a wingman you had never flown with before was not a good idea. She figured that some of the Exogorths must have had simulator runs together, but not necessarily with the wingmen they were currently flying with, and some—like her—had probably been in groups with different pilots during the initial selection process and had simmed with their current squadronmates hardly or not at all.

She ascribed that as the reason why her nerves were so much tighter than usual. It couldn't just be the overwhelming odds, the lack of sleep, and the hopelessness of their goal that was making her palms sweat inside her gloves; Areha had joined the Rebellion when she was twenty, back before it became the New Republic, back before anyone sensible thought they really had a chance to win. She was familiar with the bitter, metallic taste of staring down impossible odds. It wasn't a pleasant feeling but it was a familiar one. Going into battle with people you didn't know, whose skills you couldn't rely on—that was something she _wasn't_ familiar with.

She didn't like it. It took all her self-control to bite her lip and resist the urge to give Sienn stupid and unnecessary instructions like "stick close" or "follow my lead." The Twi'lek woman was already doing precisely that; she knew how to fly wing. She didn't need Areha to micromanage her piloting.

Areha took a deep breath, tried and failed to banish the tension knotting her muscles, and flipped her snubfighter on its side to come around and target her first set of TIEs. They were both regular TIE fighters, the traditional interstellar shock-troops of the Empire. TIEs were cheap, easy to produce, and relied on speed and maneuverability rather than defenses or armor. That meant they were ordinarily easy prey for the faster A-Wings—when your ship's greatest asset was its speed and it came up against a ship that was _faster_ , it was a bad day to be flying a TIE—but with Exogorth Squadron so thoroughly outnumbered, the odds were solidly back in the Empire's favor. It hardly mattered how much faster an A-Wing was when there were thirty-six TIEs in the sky for every single A-Wing and another dozen speedier TIE Interceptors for back up. And then there were the TIE bombers that were even now arcing wide to make a run on the under-defended base…

 _Don't get overwhelmed_ , Areha scolded herself even as she squeezed her firing triggers and sent bolts of bright energy lancing out at the nearest TIE. _Your job is these fighters; let the base defenders worry about those bombers._ The important thing was to get as many of the Imperial snubfighters as possible to focus on the A-Wings to thus give the hardier, more heavily-armed but slower Y-Wings a chance to unload their ordnance against the Star Destroyers and hopefully retard their advance enough to give everyone a chance to flee the base. And the more TIEs she could kill, the fewer of them there would be to attack the other New Republic craft.

Blasts of red light flashed past her cockpit close enough to make Areha flinch but they weren't being aimed at her; that was Sienn, shooting over her ship's shoulder at the TIEs ahead of them. One of the eyeballs took a direct hit to its engines and erupted in a little cloud of fire; the other juked sideways to avoid the explosion and Areha took advantage of the pilot's distraction to line up a precise shot. It holed the cockpit—she saw the puff of venting atmosphere—and while the ship kept flying it stopped maneuvering. Areha checked her sensors to make sure the ballistic ship wasn't heading toward the hanger and then wrote it out of her awareness; with no astromech to override ship controls or make course corrections, a TIE without a living pilot was so much space junk.

She and Sienn swung around to strafe the battlefield again. This time they came away with six TIEs on their tail, two of them Interceptors. Areha gritted her teeth and twitched her rudder; now while her ship was still flying in a smooth, curving path, it was rotating wildly as it flew. With the already slim profile of an A-Wing she would now be hard to hit with anything more than glancing blows and she figured— _hoped_ —that her shields could take that sort of pounding; she didn't plan on turning to deal with the fighters behind her just yet so she needed those shields to hold.

"Twelve, Eleven. Let's take these tagalongs for a dance," she suggested.

"I read you, Eleven. Center of the furball?"

"Yep," said Areha, and dove for the thickest part of the dogfight that had erupted where the advancing Imperial snubfighters had met the Y-Wings and their X-Wing bodyguards. Sienn stayed tight on her tail—her own ship not just spinning but jittering around to sideslip from Areha's port to starboard and back again in quick, random intervals—and their Imperial tagalongs followed obligingly.

Cutting directly through the engagement zone like that was risky; not only did they leave themselves open to collisions with any of the many distracted pilots trying to avoid and vape their own targets as they rocketed past, they also risked catching a stray shot fired by any of their enemies—or allies. It was like an Ackbar Slash except instead of diving between two parts of an opposing force that would be obliged to risk shooting one another if they wanted to try and hit their target, they were diving through the middle of a chaotic tangle more like a barroom brawl than a military face-off. What the move had in common with the traditional Ackbar Slash was that it was likely to hurt their enemies more than it did them. Both she and Sienn were flying ships with shields, fresh shields that had yet to be strained by the pressures of battle too. None of the TIEs had such protection. Every stray shot that hit the A-Wings risked penetrating those shields and damaging—or even vaping—their ships, but every stray shot that hit one of the _TIEs_ risked penetrating their _ships_.

It took all of Areha's concentration to get through the furball without running into any other snubfighters. She snapped-off a few shots of her own as she flew but she made no effort to aim them; in a target-rich environment like this she was far more likely to hit an enemy than an ally and even if she did wing one of the other New Republic ships, they all had shields too and ought to be able to weather a little friendly fire. Any TIE she hit was going to be a lot less lucky.

She allowed herself a deep breath when her ship burst out of the other side of the snarl of snubfighters and checked her sensors. Sienn had drifted a few klicks to port but she was already swerving her ship to come back to Areha's tail. Of the six TIEs who had followed them into the furball, only three were left. Areha wasn't sure if the other three had been vaped or had just gotten lost in the dogfight; it didn't really matter. Even as she watched, one of the two Interceptors still trailing them erupted in sparks and lost speed dramatically. Then it exploded and a Y-Wing rocketed through the fiery cloud, its lasers still cycling. Areha grinned, enjoying the sight of an arrogant squint being vaped by one of the slow "pig-trough" drivers they usually mocked.

Her moment of delight didn't last long; there was a battle to get back to and she and Sienn still had two fighters—an eyeball and a squint—on their tails. The two Imperials sideslipped to pair-up as wingmen, despite the squint's superior speed, and a sharp cackle sounded from Areha's comm speaker.

"Perfect," Sienn said, her voice suddenly harsh and cold. "Let me take this."

"You have lead," Areha said obligingly and dropped back to take up the wingman position on Sienn's tail.

She didn't expect Sienn to offer an explanation—wingmen were supposed to trust each other implicitly and while they hadn't flown together long enough to have that bond Areha intended to _act_ as though she required no explanations from the Twi'lek woman—but apparently Sienn had no trouble splitting her focus between flying and talking, because even as she jittered her fighter in a hard-to-target bouncing flight she spoke to Areha over their private comm channel: "If they haven't practiced that wingpair—and I bet they haven't, because good luck convincing an Interceptor pilot to play simm-jockey with a lowly eyeball driver—they won't realize that even in vacuum where those solar panels don't create drag a squint has a minutely tighter turn-radius than an eyeball." She kept her ship moving evasively but made no special effort to ditch the Imperials shooting at their engines.

Areha grinned. "And with the squint already throttled-back to match speeds with its new wingman, and the eyeball's thrust maxed-out to keep-up…" She laughed.

"Exactly," said Sienn. "We just have to make sure we don't maneuver enough that they start flying in anything but a straight line, note which side the eyeball is marking, and…. Cut your port engine for an emergency starboard reversal in three—two—mark!"

The two women hauled their A-Wings sideways, nearly flipping the ships backwards on their sterns. The internal compensator of Areha's ship wasn't up to the maneuver and she felt herself pressed back hard into the cushions. She blinked to clear her graying vision and checked the sensors behind her—although from the sound of Sienn's delighted cackle she already knew what she would see: both ships disintegrating in a ball of fire. The Interceptor had made one of those impossibly-tight turns that all TIEs were so well known for, and the regular TIE flying as its wing had done the same—but the first ship had turned harder, moving it directly across the flight-path of its wingman. Since the regular TIE had had its throttle cranked to max—had probably been diverting non-essential power from some other systems to edge its speed up past specs, if its pilot had had any sense—it hadn't been able to change course from its own sharp turn in time and had run into—and _through_ —the other ship, shredding both of them.

"Excellent tactic," Areha said, and meant it.

"Thanks." She could hear Sienn chuckling to herself as they leveled-out their flight and returned to the furball for more targets.

The Y-Wings had made it through the screen of Imperial fighters now—although their numbers had dropped from twenty-four to twenty-two, Areha saw with a chill—and were pounding the two Star Destroyers with both lasers and missiles. The two-seater ships had both a dedicated pilot and a gunner and were unloading every bit of ordnance they could bring to bear from both ends. They were also doing their best to dodge the turbolaser fire of the capital ships. Snubfighters, even ponderous Y-Wings, were too small for the large guns to target effectively—the main reason why capital ships carried snubfighters of their own for protection—but a direct hit from a turbolaser would vaporize most small fighters, even hardy Y-Wings. And with only a squadron each to shoot at, the gunners on the Star Destroyers had plenty of turbolasers to bring to bear. The Y-Wing pilots had to know that unless the base could complete its evacuation in minutes most of them were going to die today.

The X-Wing squadron didn't have much higher odds of survival: they were splitting their attention between taking potshots at the Star Destroyers' turbolaser emplacements and fending-off Imperial snubfighter attacks, leaving their ships scattered as a sort of secondary shield between the Y-Wings and the TIEs that were already turning around to return to the besieged Star Destroyers.

It was Exogorth Squadron's job to keep those TIEs too busy to prey on the Y-Wings and their defenders.

Lssk's voice crackled through their communicators again: "One Flight, take a single pass and try to clean off a few of the TIEs swarming at the planetside Destroyer. Two Flight, with me, we have the other Destroyer's snubfighter complement. Three Flight, head back toward base and vape some of those bombers for them—"

"Negative, Exogorth Squadron," interrupted an unfamiliar voice; whoever was in charge of managing the base's defenses, Areha assumed. "You stick to the fighters, we'll target the bombers ourselves."

"Base, are you sure?" Lssk asked. "That's a lot of bombers for two turbolasers and an ion canon to handle. Some of my fighters can divert to assist."

"Negative, repeat, negative. We can handle the bombers. What we _can't_ handle are those Star Destroyers. Focus on clearing the air so those Y-Wings can focus on _them_."

"I read you, base control." Lssk sounded grim. "Exogorth Lead out. All right, Three Flight, you heard the man: get into the thick of things and deal with as many of those TIEs as you can get your targeting locks around. Two Flight, with me."

The A-Wings gathered in a loose cluster off to the side of the dogfight and then two groups of four split-off, both angling in toward the cluster of snubfighters in front of each Star Destroyer. The other four—Areha, Sienn, Tanett, and Jaen—formed-up to intercept the main snarl of the dogfight.

"All right, Three Flight, let's see how much damage we can do." It took Areha a moment to place the speaker's voice; either the comm distortion did a lot to erase Tanett's usual happy drawl or else the grim reality of their situation had clipped and sobered his tone. "Ten, Twelve, I want you two to drop a half-klick behind your wingmen and set your lasers to pulse-fire. Eleven, you and I will set the targets up with some wide-spray fast-cycle shots and see if we can't lure them into jumping where Ten and Twelve will be waiting for them. Everyone copy?"

"Eleven copies, Nine," said Areha and heard the other two give their assent as well. She adjusted her lasers so they would cycle at their lowest power setting. It meant that anything she shot would take little damage, but she could fire-off a lot more shots per second than an A-Wing could normally manage. If she and Tanett could spook the targets they were shooting at into juking to avoid their low-power barrage it would—theoretically—leave them open to more carefully-aimed shots by their trailing wingmen whose lasers would be dialed up to slower shots at higher power.

The problem was that she and Tanett were both flying with wingmen whose talents were unknown—at least to Areha. She hoped that their flight leader knew what he was doing. It took more than just the ability to fly a snubfighter to be able to make use of a plan like what he was setting up. You had to have good aim but more importantly you needed an innate sense of how and where another pilot would jump. If Sienn and Jaen lacked the almost preternatural ability to anticipate the moves of the TIEs she and Tanett were shooting at it would make this whole scheme a waste of time—or worse, a recipe for disaster for the A-Wings.

Areha took a deep breath and opened up with her lasers. Off to her right Tanett was doing the same. The TIEs in front of them spiraled and scattered and dove, fleeing the blistering array of laserfire—laserfire that would do little more than scorch the paint on their hulls if it hit, but they couldn't know that. With a little thought any experienced pilot would have to realize that there was no way a ship the size of an A-Wing could produce such intense rapid-fire shots without dialing-down the power—but what Tanett was counting on was that pilots tended to react by instinct. It was what kept them alive...but in this case it would hopefully be what got them _killed_ because by the time they thought things through it would be too late—

Thick, staccato chunks of bright red light flashed past the sides of Areha's ship. In front of her one TIE exploded, then two, then four. Then she had blown past the edge of the engagement and bent her ship in a turn to come back around for another run. She checked her sensors: Sienn and Jaen were both throttling to catch-up with her and Tanett. She wasn't sure if any other TIEs had been vaped or not—with such a thick concentration of enemy craft many of their sensor profiles overlapped and she would have had to stop flying and magnify the area to count how many were left—but four ships gone in fifteen seconds of flight was a good ratio. Especially since her sensors didn't show any serious damage to herself or the rest of Three Flight.

"Good shooting," Tanett said. His voice was still sharp and dry, more like an Imperial officer than a Corellian hotshot. She wondered if he did it on purpose to sound more professional in the cockpit. There was so much she didn't know about her new squadronmates.

"Let's try it once more," Tanett suggested. "They'll probably get wise to the trick after that but I bet we can pull it off a second time before they figure it out."

"Copy," Areha said, and grimaced; she hated facing an enemy knowing that she wouldn't be able to do anything to hurt them but she understood the necessity. It was more important to erase as many TIEs as possible from the battle than it was for her to be able to take them out personally—but understanding the tactics behind the maneuver didn't mean she had to _like_ it.

She opened up with her weak barrage of lasers and tried to clamp-down on the ache of dissatisfaction that came along with the act. It was good that Imperial pilots were dying, of course—but they were dying at her wingman's hands, not hers. It wasn't the same.

It worked, which helped take some of the bitter taste from Areha's mouth; Sienn and Jaen vaped at least three more TIE fighters before Tanett decided the tactic had met the end of its useful life expectancy and should be abandoned before the Imperials thought of a clever way to use it against them. Areha thought he might have been overestimating the strategic intellect of the average TIE pilot but she didn't argue; it wouldn't be appropriate to second-guess her flight leader and ranking superior in the middle of a battle—and on top of that she was more than happy to stop setting TIEs up for other people to vape and get back to shooting them herself.

She did, for a few happy moments, Sienn tucked-in neatly on her wing again—and then the planetside Star Destroyer launched a fresh squadron of TIE Interceptors.

Someone swore over Areha's comlink; she wasn't familiar enough with her squadronmates yet to tell who.

"Cut the chatter," Lssk ordered. "Three Flight, you're closest—keep those ships away from the Y-Wings."

For a moment Areha's breath caught in her throat; four A-Wings against an entire squadron of TIE Interceptors. Not only that, but four A-Wings whose pilots were tired from several minutes of intense dogfighting and whose ships sported the weakened shields and battered hulls earned by such intense combat against twelve Interceptors whose ships and pilots were fresh…

At least no one was going to tell her to dial-down her lasers before she shot at these TIEs.

"It's been a pleasure flying with you," Areha told Sienn as they rocketed toward the oncoming ships.

"It has not," Sienn retorted immediately.

"Wh-what?" stammered Areha, caught so off-guard she almost forgot to cycle her lasers as they reached maximum range, but the other woman was still speaking:

"I hardly know you. And you aren't annoyed by me yet. Every wingman I've ever had has told me I'm annoying. I refuse to break my streak."

Areha managed a laugh. "Well," she said, "then I guess I'll have to hang around you long enough to get irritated, is that it?"

"You'd better," said Sienn.

Areha smiled grimly. "All right," she said. The bleep of a targeting lock sounded in her ears and she pulled the trigger, sending a concussion missile rocketing off toward a TIE Interceptor. The A-Wings ate up the distance between them and the TIEs so fast that the missile reached its target and exploded almost before she had finished squeezing the trigger. Two other TIEs dodged the missiles fired at them, which exploded against the Star Destroyer behind them. The imposing gray craft showed evidence of battle damage—craters where turbolasers had once been, black carbon scoring on its gray hull, gouts of fire here and there where the hull had been penetrated—but it still advanced at a steady pace, intact and liable to remain so. The Y-Wings were pounding it with everything they had but it wasn't enough.

Then Areha couldn't spare any more attention for the Star Destroyer because she had reached the Interceptors. She juked and rolled and spiraled, trying to get a laser lock on the slightly slower but more maneuverable ships. Something—friend or enemy, she didn't know—exploded close enough to her to rock her ship. She overcorrected, cursed herself, and pulled out of her spin just in time to fly through the expanding cloud of fire and vapor that had moments ago been a TIE; she looked around to see who had vaped the eyeball and saved her from a probably-fatal collision but the TIEs swarming around them were too thick for her to tell. For all she knew, it had fallen to friendly fire. "Thanks," she said over her commlink to the battle at large, just to be polite.

So far she had been managing to ignore most of the chatter that spilled from her ship's comm—trusting in her automatic stimuli responses to draw her attention to anything she needed to hear, like her own callsign or a command from one of the ranking pilots—in order to concentrate on her piloting…and because she didn't like hearing doomed pilots die when she knew there was nothing she could do to help them. When a shrill, unfamiliar voice—vaguely male, vaguely insectoid—came across the comm waves in a shriek, Areha's selective deafness evaporated:

"It's gone, the base is gone! They pulverized it!"

"Keep it together, Malfruit Three!"

"I'm still picking up transmissions from personnel inside. They just hit the hanger, calm down."

"But if they bombed the hanger…"

For a long moment silence—save for the occasional, "Break left!" "You've got one on your tail, watch it!" or "Come to point 0.2, I'll cover you!" shouted between pilots—stretched out over the comm waves. They all knew what that meant: if the hanger was no longer accessible, unless there was some other way out of Quorloth Base that the pilots didn't know about, everyone inside was trapped. There was no way the remaining snubfighters could hold-off the two Star Destroyers long enough for those inside to dig their way out.

A burst of static erupted from Areha's comm unit. There was a voice transmission wrapped-up in the garbled noise but it was hard to discern: "—make it out, no way— _szzt_ —nt be taken— _szzt_ —interroga— _szzt_ —too much. Going to— _szzt_ —surprise when they— _szzt_ —igged to blow— _szzt_ —em regret coming here. Appreci— _szzt_ —but it's time for you to get out of he— _szzt_ —be with you." The message dissolved in static and then cut-off.

A shock of green light broke through Areha's stupor and she jerked her fighter sideways, escaping the hail of laser beams converging on her ship. She checked her shields; they were flickering but still up. She quickly adjusted power to compensate for the drained portside section and turned her attention to the Interceptor that was shooting at her—but before she could do more than get a fix on its angle of attack it exploded, vaporized by Sienn's guns.

Areha blushed furiously, mortified at having been caught letting her attention wander, and opened her mouth to grudgingly thank the wingman who had just saved her life but someone else spoke first:

"Bludgeon Lead here. All fighters listen-up." The woman sounded tired, old, and hoarse—but resolute. "The base is lost; that's the end of the evacuation. Roller Squadron, Malfruit Squadron, Exogorth Squadron—break-off your attacks in staggered waves as called by your squadron leaders. Bludgeon Squadron will cover your exit, then meet you at Rendezous Dorn. Exogorths, your XO should have coordinates for you…"

"Yes, sir." Ortellan's voice broke-in. "Exogorths, come to 22.87.46 and join-up with me. I will transmit hyperspace calculations to you there."

Since A-Wings did not have astromechs on board their ships held very little navigation data; usually their onboard computers could hold no more than two hyperspace locations in their memory at one time and it took them longer to do the math to work-out their navigation paths. Areha had been trying not to think about the fact that she didn't know if her current ship had _any_ hyperspace coordinates; since she hadn't expected to survive this battle it hadn't seemed to matter that she couldn't have run if she'd wanted to. If they were going to retreat, they would need to have whatever ship Captain Ortellan was flying do the calculations for all of them.

But that would mean leaving everyone still in the base behind to die or be taken captive—and Bludgeon Squadron as well; their leader might claim that they would join the others at the rendezvous but every pilot there knew that was a pipe dream. If the senior Y-Wing squadron stayed behind to cover the other pilots' retreat they would buy that escape with the cost of their own lives.

Areha swallowed hard. She didn't like running from a fight, even one she couldn't win, but she liked even less leaving allies behind to die so she could live.

"Sir…" She didn't know who the plaintive voice belonged to—one of the Exogorths or a pilot from one of the other squadrons, maybe even one of the Bludgeons—but she shared their sentiments. She didn't like this. The problem was, she didn't know what other choice they had beyond staying and fighting to the last—but that would be pointless, a waste of resources that could be used to better hurt the Empire elsewhere.

"That's an order, Roller Seven," Bludgeon Lead barked.

"But _mom_ —"

"No personal comments, Seven."

If Areha hadn't needed both her hands to pilot and aim her guns she would have clapped at least one of them to her mouth to hold back her sense of horror. She knew there were members of the New Republic military who served alongside family—General Cracken for one, Colonel Aplaan for another—but she had never really thought about what that _meant_ before. As a survivor of Alderaan she had no family left to lose; as a survivor of Alderaan she knew what it felt like to lose everyone she loved.

She knew what it felt like to be unable to say goodbye…but to be able to speak to your mother, your child, one last time and to not be able to share your feelings for fear that the Empire would decrypt your communication and find some way to use it against you…?

Areha shook her head, feeling sick. She glowered at the nearest Star Destroyer, wishing that she was in a large capital ship, something that could do real damage to the loathsome gray wedge of terror. As it was she might as well be going after it with a slingshot and she knew it—but she still wanted to do _something_ before she left.

Dimly she heard the squadron leaders giving their instructions. Since she and Sienn were the last in line numerically they would be the last of the A-Wings to break-off from the battle.

"Let's do some damage before we go," she suggested to her wingman.

"Agreed," growled Sienn, and they threw themselves into the thick of the fight. Instead of diving in and out, making use of the A-Wings' advanced speeds in a way that mitigated the resultant vulnerability—because their ships were so fast, some maneuverability was sacrificed at their top speeds because they traveled _too_ fast for minute course adjustments—they kept their turns tight and short, remaining embroiled in the snarl of fighters. It was risky— _reckless_ —flying, but it meant that they wasted no time on long turns outside the heart of the engagement. It gave them much higher odds of being shot—and they were, as the screeching klaxons of Areha's failing shields underlined—but it also gave them more time to directly engage the enemy. Areha lost track of how many TIEs she shot and she had no idea how many she actually vaped; the round ships swarmed so thickly around the New Republic pilots that she couldn't keep track of which one she was shooting at. She just fired, and fired, and fired—

"Exogorth Eleven! Twelve! Get over here!"

Areha grimaced and dragged on her piloting yoke, pulled herself away from the battle. Over the comm she could hear Sienn cursing quietly as they flew away. A few TIEs took potshots at their engines as they fled but it was half-hearted at best; the Imperials knew that they had won and their real focus was on the helpless base.

The other A-Wings had already formed-up at the edges of the planetary ring, ambling away from the planet's gravity at a rate that would allow the rest of the squadron to catch-up before they reached a point at which they would be able to enter hyperspace. They were flanking a battered, aged T-6 shuttle that had suffered so many bad paint jobs it probably should have been in a museum of rare art rather than in military service. She and Sienn were the last to join the squadron, although two other ships were only just pulling into place as they raced over.

Areha winced in anticipation of a lecture over their unnecessarily reckless flying but none came. Captain Ortellan said only, "Transmitting coordinates now. Double-check your reception, then transit to hyperspace at once. I'll stay behind long enough to make sure you all get away, then follow."

"Sir, you can't." That was Jaen, sounding worried even through the comm distortion. "Your ship is unarmed—"

"And none of your ships can calculate a jump to hyperspace with the data in them right now. Transit with all haste; I will follow and meet you at the rendezvous. That's an _order_ , Flight Officer Vao."

"Yes, sir."

Areha didn't intend to look back; she could imagine what was happening well enough. The TIEs would be trying to break past Bludgeon Squadron and the slower Y-Wings would be doing everything in their power to keep as many of them occupied as possible—which would inevitably involve sacrificing themselves either deliberately or simply by focusing too much of their attention on shooting at the TIEs to spare enough to protect themselves. The bombers would either be continuing to pound the base flat if they didn't want to bother with prisoners or salvage, or would already be returning to the Star Destroyers, their job over. The faster Interceptors would probably have broken away from Bludgeon Squadron and be chasing down the retreating fighters—yes, a glance at her sensor screen showed five squints coming in their direction while the remaining six pursued the X-Wings. There were only four X-Wings left, Areha saw, and swallowed hard.

She was about to make a count of her own squadronmates to see how many Exogorths had survived but a blast of ear-piercing static distracted her. Several people yelped or shrieked; Redun howled in pain. Areha shook it off and checked her sensors for the source of the noise.

It was the Quorloth Base. She looked over her shoulder, not believing what she saw on her screens.

The large asteroid was gone, now nothing but chunks spinning off in every direction, many of them spitting out gouts of fire. At least half the TIE bombers had been caught in the blast; as she watched she saw another one vaporize when a tumbling chunk of rock the size of a landspeeder collided with it.

"They rigged it to blow," Berjeleth said. With his prosthetic vocabulator it was impossible to detect any inflection or emotion in his tone but Areha felt awed—awed, horrified, and proud. Rather than be captured, rather than risk the Empire—or whatever warlord controlled those Star Destroyers, if they were not Imperial craft—learning anything that might be of use to them in their battles against the New Republic, the remaining personnel on Quorloth Base had set-off a massive self-destruct that had destroyed it all…and themselves.

"Let's go, Exogorths." Captain Ortellan's voice was quiet. "Everyone have the coordinates?"

A chorus of affirmatives answered her. Areha hesitated but there was nothing else she could do; there was no one left to defend. The Interceptors would reach them soon but shooting them down wouldn't really do any good. The Empire wasn't the behemoth it once was but it still had plenty of pilots and plenty of ships and the New Republic couldn't afford to lose a squadron of pricey A-Wings for no more gain than the death of a few TIEs.

She sighed and reached for the toggle that would launch her small ship into hyperspace.


	5. Dramatis Personae

**Exogorth Squadron, original personnel:**

General **Kiel Macklen** [Leader] _Mon Calamari male from Dac_

Captain **Shenay Ortellan** [XO] _Human female from Coruscant_

Lieutenant **Leeso Voond** [Exogorth One] _Duros female from Duro_

Flight Officer **Treen** [Exogorth Two] _Human female from Agamar_

Flight Officer **Berjeleth Afneen** [Exogorth Three] _Human male from Harrin_

Flight Officer **Gez of Clan Tanwa** [Exogorth Four] _Rodian male from Coruscant_

Lieutenant **Lssk Drenko** [Exogorth Five] _Quarren male from Dac_

Flight Officer **Redun Hadar** [Exogorth Six] _Cathar male from Cath_

Flight Officer **Kaden Lothar** [Exogorth Seven] _Zabrak female from Iridonia_

Flight Officer **Mondalnan Ulnee** [Exogorth Eight] _Mirialan male from Mirial_

Flight Officer **Tanett Shenk** [Exogorth Nine] _Human male from Corellia_

Flight Officer **Jaen Vao** [Exogorth Ten] _Twi'lek male from Nar Shaddaa_

Flight Officer **Areha Duranna** [Exogorth Eleven] _Human female from Alderaan_

Flight Officer **Sienn Saresh** [Exogorth Twelve] _Twi'lek female from Ryloth_

* * *

 _NOTE: The last posted "chapter" of this story will always be the squadron roster/characters list (as those were common elements of the old_ Star Wars _snubfighter novels and I always found them useful for call-sign referencing, etc.) rather than an actual piece of the story itself; I will attempt to remember to move it to the end of the story after each new chapter is posted but let me apologize in advance if I ever forget to adjust its placement._


End file.
